Chair's update: March

Tom Walker, Chair

Storm damage in Abney Park after Storm Eunice. Thanks to the team from Hackney Council for making the park safe. (Image credit: Hackney Council)

Spring in Abney is wonderful. The bird song has already picked up and the next month or so is good to see birds before the foliage returns.

Twitter user @stokey_nature posted this list of spotted birds on 26th February: blackbird, blue tit, carrion crow, feral pigeon, great spotted woodpecker, great tit, jay, long-tailed tit, magpie, redwing, ring-necked parakeet, robin, wood pigeon.

Of course, the main news last month was the storm damage. The park was closed for several days for safety reasons and to allow the council to make the trees and monuments safe. There was more damage than we hoped and sadly four veteran trees came down. The council team, who manage the park, have been careful to keep as much of the old wood as possible on site and we are grateful for their careful work in making the park safe in a way that respects the habitat and ecology.

Our events are going from strength to strength at the moment and two things for the future are a planned community stall on Sunday 27th March and a bigger open day on Saturday 21st May. We hope to see you at one or both of these events.

We have nearly completed the recruitment of the new Trust Manager, and we will be able to announce the name of the successful candidate next month – with a start in mid-April.

Finally, thanks to a correspondent who got in touch about our work on Common Graves (those burials with no headstone) and the Abney Unearthed project. We received a lovely message from a relative in Perth, Australia. The grandson of FJL Gregory contacted us about his grandmother, who was born in Islington in 1865 and buried in a common grave in Abney in 1923. She was a tailoress. The family had visited the site and made a tribute in 2008 and contacted us recently to see if the memorial was still in situ.

We were pleased to be able to check the site and provide the trans-continental assurance that it was, and make the links between the Abney Unearthed project and the Gregory family. It is an important example of the work we do and the links we can make – over the centuries and across the world.

Thank you for your ongoing support.