Friends of Key Hill & Warstone Lane Cemeteries
The Friends of Key Hill & Warstone Lane Cemeteries was established in 2004 under the leadership of Pauline Roberts together with a small group of people who were concerned at the visible deterioration of the cemetery and alarmed at the potential loss of an important slice of Birmingham’s heritage. Since then the group has gradually grown and now represents a substantial number of people mainly from Birmingham and the surrounding area who care about Key Hill Cemetery.
The Friends’ main objective is to raise money for the refurbishment of the cemetery and lobbying for better management of the site. Inevitably this means working closely with Bereavement Services and other departments of the City Council, but also with agencies such as the JQRP and other groups, which share the Friends concern for the heritage and history of Birmingham. The Friends also work to raise the profile of what had become a forgotten gem of the Jewellery Quarter and to involve more local people in caring for it and encouraging its use by researchers and local schoolchildren.
The primary activity is an annual ‘Open Day’ generously supported by Ladywood Ward Community Chest, at which the Friends and agencies concerned with the cemetery come together to mount information displays and activities designed to broaden knowledge and understanding of Key Hill. This year the event was held on Saturday 13th September.
In addition groups of members and other volunteers regularly hold clean-up sessions to remove litter and cut back intrusive weed growth. There is a project to record all the existing memorial inscriptions and to make the information available to researchers and others with an interest. This project is 50% complete and it is ultimately planned to publish a comprehensive record of each memorial inscription, some notes on the condition of the plots and a photograph. This will lead to other work such as a full recording of research about all the war casualties remembered at Key Hill. It also intended to analyse the information recorded on memorials to see what that may tell us about social conditions in Birmingham’s early history.
Members of the Friends of Key Hill each receive a periodic newsletter.
The Friends of Key Hill can:
o Arrange speakers to talk about the cemetery to clubs, societies, schools etc.
o Organise conducted tours of the cemetery for groups or individuals.
o Help tidy individual plots.
o Identify memorials and provide information about inscriptions to researchers
The Friends of Key Hill need:
o Volunteers to help with its work – in particular with the indexing project and in researching the background of people interred there.
o Help with organising display material and producing information.
o Fund raising to enable individual monuments to be restored.
If you would like more information contact:
Brian Southwell, Secretary – Friends of Key Hill and Warstone lane Cemeteries, 23 Quincey Drive, Erdington, Birmingham B24 9LXEmail: brian.southwell@yahoo.co.uk or post@fkwc.org
Tel: 0121-382 1634
Website www.fkwc.org
