The Secret Life of Stone in St James Churchyard by Jane Jones, Churchwarden

Last month, on a beautiful sunny spring day, three members of the British Lichen Society came along to study the lichens in our churchyard.

Just in case you don’t know, apparently much of the white, green, black and yellow patches that you see on trees, old walls and church monuments are lichens - living combinations of algae and fungi. It’s amazing what close scrutiny using a simple magnifying glass can reveal.To be honest, I thought quite a few of the blobs the lichen experts were enthusing over were bird droppings, but on closer inspection I could see that this was absolutely not the case!

Of the 2050+ British lichen species, over a third have been found in churchyards and more than 600 have been found growing on churchyard stone in lowland England. Many are scarce and some seldom, if ever, occur in other habitats. Around 60 lichen species were recorded in our churchyard ie 10% of all those found in Lowland England.

Lichens are a quiet but essential part of the ecosystem. They clean the air, build soil by breaking down rock and dead plants, and provide food and shelter for wildlife. According to the Natural History Museum, lichens are considered highly reliable bioindicators of air pollution. Because they lack roots and obtain nutrients directly from the atmosphere, they are exceptionally sensitive to air quality, particularly to sulphur dioxide and nitrogen pollution. So finding so many in our churchyard, and with such a variety of species, is testament to what a healthy and clean place our churchyard is to be.

The walls of the church are made of local stone, mainly Lias limestone and sandstone. Unfortunately, both of these are very soft and subject to damage from erosion by the wind and rain, but that is a story for another day... however, lichens love it. The church walls are richly embellished in yellow and black circular lichens having mesmerising (common) names like ‘Rotten Orange’ and ‘Cigarette Ash’. The older sandstone monuments provide a home for the ‘Little Brown Map’ lichen. Some of the lichens on the lime trees have fruits like little jam tarts whilst the green ‘Shrek’s Ears’ lichen looks just like its name and is easy to identify. Along the edges of the tarmac paths you can find the ‘Chewing Gum’ lichen, again easy to spot and easily confused with its namesake.

If you would like to read the full report on the Lichen survey, and get to grips with the official Latin names, please see the attached file or contact St James Church office and we will happily email you a copy or print one that you can collect. The report is full of colour photographs, many taken with a phone magnifier to show the brightly coloured and interestingly shaped fruiting bodies produced at this time of year.

There’s not much not to like about lichens. We may think of them as small and insignificant, but in churchyards they thrive undisturbed, cleaning the air and providing food and shelter for other living creatures.