SIR — Thank you to Dulverton Middle School pupils and Dr Eric Robinson in his letter (both Free Press December 18) for highlighting the value of churchyards as havens for wildlife. 

I have been made to feel a crank for suggesting such an idea.

By providing spaces in churchyards where once common wildflowers could flourish, and encouraging bees, butterflies etc, the living might find some comfort; but many churchyards are sterile, soulless places, victims of a mania for tidiness which makes everywhere bland and the same as everywhere else. 

If I were visiting a grave, I know what sort of churchyard environment I would like to see.

Mary Blackledge,

Timberscombe.