As with all of the Trust’s work, training, outreach and engagement were placed firmly at the centre of the Cemeteries Project. Over the course of the project, 280 volunteers and trainees participated, and over 12,000 hours of training were delivered. 

The Trust worked with a diverse range of groups in the community, who offered voluntary or in-kind support to the project. Over 100 people were involved in training, including: the Conservation Training Programme trainees; conservation students visiting from Estonia; a group from Norfolk and Waveney Mind and students from both East Norfolk Sixth Form College and East Coast College. Volunteers contributing to the project in other ways included The Conservation Volunteers, Friends of Great Yarmouth Cemeteries and The Prince's Trust. Additionally, services have been offered by skilled or professional members of the community including historians, archivists, GYB Services personnel, artists and teachers. 

Conservation skills training
Great Yarmouth Preservation Trust delivered  a conservation skills training programme between January and June 2013, divided into two modules. Training was delivered by conservation specialists Katie Langridge, Darren Barker and Ian Hardy. Trainees were helped with their research tasks by Paul Davies and volunteers at the Central Library, and the artist Jonathan Tooke worked with them to assemble ideas, images and text for a Cemeteries Booklet. Penny Larson delivered individual learning support and development, working closely with the trainees on career development, including CV writing, arranging certificated training in First Aid and Health & Safety and identifying further learning opportunities appropriate to their needs and objectives.

The first module engaged twenty volunteers, teaching trainees how to categorise, record and survey stones and tombs. They were introduced to materials and decay mechanisms, taught how to make measured drawings and conduct historical research using library records, and created databases for their recording activity in the churchyard. By the end of the module they were able to make specifications and show sufficient understanding of conservation issues to select tombs to be repaired in the second module.

The second module engaged fourteen trainees and provided practical training in basic conservation skills. Trainees worked in pairs and selected the tombs they wished to repair, working under the supervision of conservation specialists and with training provided by John Briggs, stonemason, and Nigel Barnett, artist blacksmith. During the second module, many in the team started attending both Monday and Tuesday sessions. They took great pride in their work and achieved far more than expected. Additionally, they participated in other events, such as contributing artwork to the Art Amongst the Stones exhibition presented in the Minster, attending Norfolk Wildlife Trust workshops, supporting the Norfolk and Waveney Mind group and continuing work on drawing up a plan of the remaining marked graves in the churchyard. 

The trainees have often commented on how rewarded they felt from appreciative comments made by the many people who walk through the cemeteries and churchyard, revealing the real impact this project has had within the community at large. The trainees have been magnificent, attending in all weather conditions and showing enthusiasm and commitment throughout.

Two of the trainees have been taken on as apprentices with Wellington Construction Ltd., the contractor on a Great Yarmouth Preservation Trust historic building conservation project. Four continued work in the cemeteries on a part-time, self-employed basis with a view to taking up further training opportunities and developing a livelihood in conservation. Another continued further education in conservation studies.

To read about the experiences of two former trainees, please see Cathy Mijatovic’s piece 'My Experience of the Cemeteries Project', and David Harwood’s 'Hidden Heritage'. 

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Norfolk and Waveney Mind
Young volunteers from Norfolk and Waveney Mind worked towards completing the record of gravestones and monuments in the churchyard, which was begun by the Friends of Great Yarmouth Cemeteries in 2013. It was a daunting task, but huge progress was made, and most of the stones have been cleared and plotted so that a churchyard plan can at last be drawn up. However, new graves are still being discovered, especially the pebble graves, many of which lay just under the turf. A database is being compiled of all the graves in the churchyard still marked by stones.

East Coast College 
Students on a Basic Construction Course at East Coast College contributed to the Cemeteries Project as part of a work experience scheme. As well as learning how to survey and repair tombs, the students cleared around the King Henry Tower in the churchyard, taking care to preserve the veteran elder which grows nearby. Some of the students with a particular interest in conservation went on to volunteer with the St Margaret’s Church project after completing college. 

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As part of the Cemeteries Project, the Trust also worked with a team of students from East Coast College to conserve a First World War memorial. Dedicated ‘In Honour of the Old Boys of the British, Nelson and Trafalgar Road Schools’, the memorial displays the names of the many local servicemen who fell in the conflict. 

The memorial had been in storage for three decades, having been removed from St. George’s School during remodelling works in the 1980s. In 2013, Great Yarmouth Borough Council gave the Cemetery Chapel to the Trust for use as a conservation workshop. Under the guidance of the Trust, students studying basic construction worked to restore this piece of history to its former glory, fittingly in the period marking the anniversary of the conflict.

The plaque is in three sections and is constructed with timber side panels and a central bronze panel, each listing the names of former pupils of the three schools who were killed in the Great War. The memorial is virtually complete, but had been soiled over the decades and a number of the timber panels were also in need of repair. The team cleaned the memorial and added a wax coat to help protect it for the future. The main plaque was unveiled in November 2017 and is now on display at St George's Primary School on St Peter’s Road.

Gary Jefferson, Director of Engineering and Construction at East Coast College, said: “The restoration of this monument is a real honour for our students. They have put a huge amount of effort into the Cemeteries Project and this restoration is particularly important given that this year marks the centenary of the start of the Great War. They will undertake a research project at the College to support their work at the Cemetery, of which we are really proud to support”.

To access the list of names on the memorial, and to see research about their lives and service, please click here. If you have any further information about these individuals which you wish to contribute, please contact us.
 

East Norfolk Sixth Form College
A group of more than 50 students from East Norfolk Sixth Form College visited the Old Cemetery in September 2013, to study patterns of holly growth as a practical assignment for their A2 Biology course. 

St. Nicholas Priory Junior School
Year 5 students at St Nicholas Priory Junior School attended a series of wildlife workshops, delivered by Mark Webster and Bridget Heriz. The children were taught how to make bird nest boxes from kits created by the Norfolk Haw and Old Trust, and visited the Old Cemetery to select trees where they wanted the boxes to be placed. A total of 100 bird boxes were produced by the pupils.

Following on from these wildlife workshops, ten pupils volunteered to create an animation about the cemeteries with the artist and filmmaker Matthew Harrison. Watch their video below: