Friends of Darwen Cemetery

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Friends of Darwen Cemetery

A Voluntary and Charitable Community Group set up to provide a forum for visitors to participate in discussions and activities regarding Darwen Cemetery.

We aim to Provide a forum for Darwen Cemetery visitors to participate in discussions and activities. Preserve and improve Darwen Cemetery. Promote the historical, environmental and cultural significance of the Cemeteries. Investigate the biodiversity potential for Cemeteries. Communicate its work to elected Council and Board members, other agencies and organisations and members of the community. E

ncourage community participation in our work, especially by the youth of the town. Registered Charity No: 1142815

12/06/2026

For the first time in several years the weather beat us yesterday. The rain was just to heavy for us to do anything practical.⛈️⛈️

So instead of a "what we did today" type of post we thought we'd share a couple of points from our AGM held in May. In 2025:

* Our members volunteered 1713 hours of labour 😲 in the cemetery not including time provided by our Trustees in running our charity - management meetings, events organisation, responding to emails, planning grave refurbishments, managing our social media and web site amongst other things. All of this probably adds at least another 100 hours of time. 😲👍

* We engaged the services of a specialist for the re-erection of 25 graves on Section G opposite the WWI Memorial Wall. The cost was significant and was paid for with funds we raised through our Grave Maintenance Scheme and donations from the public in return for help we gave finding and restoring graves of their ancestors.

The minutes from our AGM will be published on our website by month end.

Please follow us to keep updated on our work and let us know if you have any questions.

If you would like to know more about volunteering with please send us an email at [email protected]

09/06/2026

A request to all our war grave adopters.

With the growing season in the cemetery well under way boosted by the recent sun and rain, could you please spare 20 minutes to visit your adopted grave(s) if you haven't been recently and give it a tidy?

A path to each grave was cut 3 weeks ago so all graves should be reasonably accessible but please take care under foot as always.

Thank You ❤️

07/06/2026

Four of us were back out in the Cemetery yesterday morning. A damp start but thankfully the rain wasn't a repeat of Thursday.

Lark Street gates were given a wash and pruning work continued on Section A. We'll return to this section later in the year to finish off.

A photo from when Lark Street gates were refurbished in 2015 is included.

04/06/2026

Three of our volunteers braved the heavy rain this morning ⛈️

There's always something to do and some of us enjoy being outdoors whatever the weather. That's what we say to ourselves 🤣 Others think we're crackers.

Work continued in the Nature Garden to keep the Spring growth under control. Some tidying was done on the beautifully kept part of Section 2 whilst some road sweeping was needed to tidy up stray grass clippings and chippedbark from recent work done by the relevant Council teams.😟

We'll be there again on Saturday regardless of the weather 🌞🌧❄️

03/06/2026

The nature garden is really looking lush at the moment, why not pop round for a look and check on all the work we the Friends of Darwen Cemetery have been doin.
Working parties Thursday mornings and every other Saturday morning.

30/05/2026

Are you a volunteer in Blackburn with Darwen?

Come along to The Big Thank You, an event dedicated to celebrating... YOU!

This drop-in event welcomes all volunteers from across the borough to come together for a cuppa and a biscuit - and to collect a special certificate in recognition of what you do for others in BwD.

Where: Outside Blackburn Town Hall on King William Street

When: Wednesday 3 June between 11am till 2pm

For more details about Volunteers’ Week and other events happening in BwD, click the link in comments below...

28/05/2026

Our Latest Grave Refurbishment
Last Saturday (23rd May 2026) we finally finished off our latest grave refurbishment in section 4B.
When we were asked to look for the grave we could not find it, based on the section plan it is was just here, but here was a bush with loads of undergrowth and that was about it (on the below photograph), so started prodding around and we finally hit something hard.

We cut the bush right back and removed all the undergrowth, once cleared we ended up with the grave (on the below photograph), it was all together but the bases had slipped and it was very lopsided.

After many working parties and a lot of hard work, which included completely dismantling the edges and the corner pieces and putting them to one side, we had to prise back in to place the base stones by lifting up one side and putting bricks and slate under to help raise the bases, finally we got the bases all level and we put all the edges and the corner pieces back together and cemented them in place.

We had to raise the centre of the grave and we added quiet a bit of builders rubble to do this, then added a good quality membrane and White Spa Stones to finish the job off.

As you can see by the photographs how well the grave has turned out.

I would like to thank Derek for his patience while we completed the grave (it took a lot longer than usual on this occasion), I would like give a special thank you to Stephen, especially having this grave as his first lead grave, you have done a fantastic job! and thank you to Stuart who helped Stephen with a good proportion of the work on the grave.

Finally a big thank you to Alan who has been our main go to guy for the renovation of the graves over a lot of FODC time, sadly Alan recently retired and hung up his tool bag. “THANKS ALAN”

FODC May 2026.

24/05/2026

FODC know and understand the significance of diverse flora and fauna in Darwen Cemetery. Much of our work is to encourage a balance between nature and the need to preserve the cemetery. It's just sometimes we have to take back what nature has previously claimed as hers.

Yesterday morning saw work progressing on Section A to clear back undergrowth from graves. Thanks Ladies. 👏❤️

We also completed work on restoring a grave at a relative's request. This could well be the most challenging grave we have restored. Completely taken over by bushes and sunken restored to what you see today. Huge well done to Stephen, Stuart & Paul.👏👏👏❤️

On to the next challenge. If you're interested in knowing more about FODC and what we do please come along to one of work parties for a chat. Dates are on our website along with lots more useful info. 👍

14/05/2026

Who ordered hail stones in May? 🤣

Thankfully we missed the bad weather today and took the opportunity to get some path edges cleared around Sections D and G down towards the WWI Memorial Wall.

Top soil from Howarth Timber (Thanks Vanessa Wright) was added to the Military Section yesterday ⛈️ 🙁 and seeded today. Hopefully the weather will be kind and things will look better soon and it will be easier to cut too. 😃

Address

Darwen
BB32LX

Website

http://www.darwencemetery.org.uk/

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