Heavenly Gardens

OUR VISION

Heavenly Gardens aspires to revitalise the medieval churchyards of Norwich to create an interconnected botanic garden for community use

Proposal

Imagine Norwich’s ancient churchyards as a series of attractive gardens, full of people and activity

PEOPLE

Existing and new groups of volunteers are central to achieving our aim of community involvement

PLACES

32 medieval churches survive in Norwich city centre, which is more than anywhere else in northern Europe

PLANTS

Botanical themes illustrate the role of plants in the development of the city through the ages

We are an organisation of volunteers working towards realising the Heavenly Gardens vision - if you would like to help us, then please have a look at our guide to The Churchyards and find one that you would like to support.

Explore The Churchyards

OUR PROGRESS

Norwich's Heavenly Gardens is an evolving project, here you can keep up to date with our progress.

We are powered by volunteers - so why not join us?

Heavenly Gardens is currently focused on 14 of 32 churchyards in Norwich. As we attract more support and interest grows in our project we would like to roll our vision out to many more churches.

For now we are developing a series of guided visitor walks to help raise awareness of the wonderful medieval history of Norwich.

If this project is something that interests you, we urge you to get in touch to help fulfil the Heavenly Garden Vision.

6 Active Gardens
St Stephen, St George Tombland, St Simon & St Jude, St George Colegate, St Clement & St Peter Mancroft churchyards with independent volunteer groups
8 Churchyards Under Improvement
St Margaret, St Peter Hungate, All Saints, St Martin at Palace, St Peter Parmentergate, St Mary Coslany, St Michael at Plea & St Michael Coslany
18 Churchyards Awaiting Improvement
Churchyards without a resident group of volunteer gardeners
6 Published Guided Walk Leaflets
Available from City Bookshop in Davey Place, Norwich

OUR TEAM

Find out more about the people involved in this project

George Ishmael

Project Manager

The wonderful Heavenly Gardens volunteers at St Peter Hungate churchyard

Sponsors

These organisations have supported us:

Norwich Historic Churches Trust has supported us by hosting the Heavenly Gardens project and the Trust’s charitable status enables us to apply for a wide range of grant aid.

Norwich Town Close Estate Charity kindly provided us with a financial grant to establish a pilot project to demonstrate the benefits of churchyard improvement.

LivCom – Liveable Communities – supported by United Nations Environment Programme – recognised the importance of Heavenly Gardens with a Special Projects Award.

Royal Horticultural Society
– provided a grant for replanting All Saints churchyard as part of Greening Grey Britain.

The Friends of Norwich in Bloom
– contribution towards the cost of producing the Mancroft guided walk leaflet.

The Co-operative
– Heavenly Gardens has been selected for the Co-operative Community Awards. This will give financial support from local stores for a 12 month period until October 2021.

Norwich City Council
– Heavenly Gardens has been given a pledge of £5,000 to match other sponsors, including the Co-op to fund our “Heavenly Gardens for Health” project.

Get in touch

If you are interested in helping to develop a Heavenly Garden or wish to be involved in this exciting project, then please get in touch