Deane Road Cemetery plans update

Last week saw a very successful clean-up day in the Deane Road Jewish Cemetery.

I went to the latest planning meeting tonight and Saul Marks of the Old Congregation Project told us about all the different volunteers that turned up, the hard work of the Probation Service volunteers and the efforts of the Kensington Clean Team.

One particularly interesting visitor during the clean-up was a man who as a child used to live on Chiswell Street and overlooked the cemetery from his bedroom window. He and his pals used to climb over the wall to play amongst the tombstones and he said he still has vivid dreams about the place.

A good third of the cemetery has once again been cleared of weeds and overgrowth, Tony, one of the Probation Office volunteers did a good job clearing the southern path nearly all the way down and everyone worked really hard clearing round a particular grave that was due to be visited by relatives over the weekend.

I have done some genealogy work in conjunction with Saul and with Maria Grimes and we have identified some descendants who we are now going to approach to see if they can help with our fundraising efforts to find the £200k we need to fully restore the cemetery.

The next project is to tidy up the front, outside area, so that residents walking past can see a renewed drive and flower beds. We have already got the funding for this and agreed tonight to get on with this straight away, so if you want to help please get in touch.

I am going to put a few photographs up for you to see the work and the workers (and the Sid Vicious graffiti I mentioned in an earlier post). These are of the areas that have been cleared up to a point, the rest is still head-high in weeds.

Comments would be appreciated