Arnos Vale
Bristol, February 2022
It was over a slow decline that, in 1987, the then owners of Arnos Vale Cemetery announced that they intended to develop the site for housing. It had opened 150 years previously and was once described as the most fashionable place in Bristol to be buried. On hearing the news a public campaign was launched which, ultimately, led to its compulsary purchase by Bristol Council in 2003.
Designer Charles Underwood drew heavily from ancient Greece for Arnos Vale's layout and aesthetics. From the entrance the cemetery rolls out in front you before making its way up the hill towards neighbouring Knowle and Totterdown. In the summer the skyline is a rich green - the cemetery is home to thousands of trees and is an important ecological site in the centre of the city. The bulk of the volunteers' time is spent managing the 45 acres of flora across the site.
The cemetery wasn't always so wild and forested. The Victorians had kept the views pristine and carefully scuplted but, over the years, nature has been allowed a more free reign. Today, as you make your way up the slope away from the entrance, Arnos Vale feels more like a woodland. Liam Matthews is the Estate Supervisor and, alongside his team of volunteers, keeps the flora in check. He's the only member of staff working full time in the grounds so knows all too well the value of the volunteers. "They're massively important" he says, "I wouldn't be able to do all this work on my own and we can't afford to pay loads of people to come and do it. It's all the fiddly jobs that the volunteers are great at - the raking up when it's grass cutting season, the cutting back of bramble when you've got to be quite meticulous. Without the volunteers we wouldn't be able to do half the things we do". For such a rare spot of natural wilderness in a city they're key. "We'd end up losing some of our most valuable habitat if we didn't have the volunteers" Liam sums up.
The love for Arnos Vale is what comes across from the volunteers. Nick first started volunteering here in January 2016. "I actually did end up working here for a while as a caretaker, and I loved the place and the people, but I found the work too physical so I gave that up just before Covid started and went back to volunteering". Somewhat ironically Nick now spends his time chopping felled wood alongside Bill, working their way through dozens of trunks and logs before stacking them to be seasoned and sold as fire wood. Bill spends a lot of time volunteering, all with a similar theme. "I started here nine years ago, two days a week here, down at the Cathedral, and I used to garden at Briggs House in Westbury". The physical aspect of the role appealed to Bill. "I don't like sitting down, I prefer to be active and doing something physical".
When the first lockdown was brought in volunteering was put on hold. It wasn't until the summer that they were allowed back. "It felt like a long time" Nick explains, "because it's a friendly group of people". Although currently in pairs they used to work in larger teams on projects. "We made a lot of friends, got to like a lot of people". Having to stay away was hard. "This time last year was very grim" Nick says of the lockdown in early 2021.
Arnos Vale is an ever changing environment, even if the timescales involved make less than obvious. "I've planted trees in here" says Bill, "proper trees. And you do feel like in thirty years time, I won't see it, but that'll be lovely".
And perhaps that best encapsulates what volunteering means to people. It's paying something forward, even when you know you won't be here to see it when it's fully grown.