Volunteers involved in creating the Peace Garden at Newnham-on-Severn, Gloucestershire, in an extension to the local churchyard have received the first of a new series of grants under what is called the Parish Pump Priming scheme from the Conservation Foundation.

The Conservation Foundation is an organisation set up 20 years ago by, among others, botanist David Bellamy, famous from his television appearances. It was responsible for the Yews for the Millennium project that invited parishes to plant a yew tree propagated from trees reputed to be 2,000 years old.

From that grew the Parish Pump Network, as it is known, and that has now led on to the Parish Pump Priming Awards, launched in April this year, that aim to provide some money for parish conservation projects.

Newnham has received £500 for its Peace Garden project. The Award was handed over to the volunteers by the Bishop of Gloucester, the scheme having a strong link with the Church of England although attempting to be ecumenical.

The parishioners of Newnham had originally intended to create their Peace Garden to commemorate the 11 September terrorist attack on New York last year, but since then felt the American response did not represent peace and had decided that their garden would not commemorate anything in particular.

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