Churchyards can be the answer to Nature's prayers in a world where concrete often hold sway. Environment correspondent John Dean reports.

WALKING through the graveyard at St Oswald's Church, there is a great sense of peace. This is, after all, the last resting place of the dead of centuries.

Yet at the same time, the Durham City churchyard bustles with life, birds singing in the trees, grasses rustling, insects flitting from bush to bush.

The reason is that churchyards are increasingly being recognised as crucially important wildlife habitats, particularly in urban areas where developers are grabbing every bit of available green space.

More than 6,000 churchyards throughout Britain, many of them in the North-East and North Yorkshire, are now managed for wildlife in a movement driven by parishioners and conservationists and supported by the likes of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Prince of Wales.

Among the most important species to be found in churchyards are grasses, mosses, ferns and lichens, some dating back to the days when their sites were meadows.

Finding it difficult to cling on to existence in the urban landscape, they find safe haven in a protected graveyard. Indeed, some country churchyards have been found to have a hundred species of plants.

Churches rural and urban, and of varied denominations, are working to enhance those habitats and 13th Century St Oswald's, close to the bustling city centre streets but a haven of peace for all that, is a classic example of what can be achieved.

The success of the work at St Oswald's was the inspiration for what became the Durham Wildlife Trust Churchyard Group, which will celebrate its tenth anniversary next year.

The group can trace its roots back to the early 1990s and the actions of then vicar, Ben de la Mare, and his wife Clare Stancliffe, who became convinced that more could be done to encourage wildlife in the churchyard.

Working with Andrew Jackson, of Durham City Council, which was responsible for the graveyard grass-cutting, they devised a regime which saw the grass cut monthly rather than fortnightly. In addition, an area in the middle of the churchyard was left untouched to develop as a wildflower meadow.

They were simple measures but the results were startling. Mr de la Mare, who was vicar until 2002 and remains an important part of the churchyard group, says: "We had already carried out a survey of our bird-life and discovered more than 60 species, including blackbirds, robins, jackdaws, blue tits, finches and wrens.

"But changing the grass cutting to monthly instead of every two weeks unlocked an incredible surge of flowers. Doubling the time they were allowed to grow, allowed them to seed much better."

The result was a profusion of species such as orange hawkbit, also known as fox and cubs, and common bluebell. And leaving stinging nettles to grow encouraged butterflies.

More flowers also provided food for birds and the profusion of insects attracted bats, of which the churchyard has a healthy population.

Mr de la Mare says: "Everything benefited from the new regime. We were learning all the time - and even learned to regard stinging nettles as a protected species!"

In 1996, the couple helped organise a conference in Durham City, bringing together church people and experts, out of which emerged the churchyard group, backed by the wildlife trust. Today, its members are scattered across the county with an increasing number of churches managing for wildlife.

Mr de le Mare says: "One of our ambitions is to provide support and expertise for churches which have become aware of the wildlife potential of their graveyards."

Churchyard group member Val Standen, a retired Durham University ecologist, says: "They are good for wildlife because they tend to be enclosed, which means they are not disturbed, and they tend not to be subject to herbicide and fertilisers. They are pockets of biodiversity in a sea of concrete."

Group member and St Oswald's parishioner Sarah Knight says: "People appreciate what has happened here and come into the churchyard to enjoy it."

The trio recommend that anyone setting up a group first surveys the wildlife present, checks the legal situation to make sure they can make changes to management regimes and ensures there are enough volunteers present to sustain the project. Their work is encouraged by conservationists like Jim Cokill, the conservation manager for Durham Wildlife Trust. "Churchyards are good wildlife habitats because they are undisturbed; they have had a wall round them for one or two hundred years," he says. "In addition, they tend not to have had fertiliser used on them, which makes them good for a variety of species, as does the fact that they have mature trees, which have great conservation value.

"Taking in an urban context - and many rural churchyards were once rural but have become urban as built-up areas have spread - they are the only green areas of such age."

* Anyone wishing to contract the Churchyard Group can do so through Durham Wildlife Trust on 0191 584-3112.