Page 10 - Oxted Local July 2025

10 July 2025
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Oxted Local 
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In May 2024 the Parochial Church
Council (PCC), of St. Mary’s Church,
Oxted agreed that the Church
should work towards becoming
an active Eco Church. It registered
with A Rocha UK and appointed
Dr Catharina Stibe-Hickson as its
Eco champion, assisted by a small
team of volunteers with different
skills and experiences covering the
different areas of church life.
The Eco church scheme run by A
Rocha equips churches to care for
God’s creation in a wide variety
of ways. In order to receive an
award a church must demonstrate
environmental engagement in five
areas -worship and teaching, the
management of church buildings,
the management of church
land, community and global
engagement and individual life
styles.
Even before the idea of becoming
an Eco Church had been agreed
St. Mary’s had been fulfilling
some of the requirements. It had
been taking part in no mow May
when the grass in several parts of
the churchyard was left to grow,
encouraging wildlife such as
butterflies and moths. To keep the
rest of the grass under control St.
Mary’s has a flock of hardy sheep
who graze the grass all year round
in three fenced off areas of the
churchyards, looked after by a
team of 6 volunteers who feed the
sheep daily in winter, keep their
St. Mary’s Church Oxted, St. Mary’s Church Oxted,
goes for Gold! goes for Gold!
water clean and topped up, maintain fences and gates and remove
any poisonous weeds. The sheep are a great attraction for younger
members of the community.
Once the PCC had signed on further efforts were made to become
Eco-friendly. More parts of the churchyard were left unmown for ‘Let
it Bloom in June’ and on June 9th members of Junior Church assisted
by their leaders took part in the Churches Count of Nature 2024 when
species of plant and nature in the main churchyard were counted.
In the following days from June 10th until June 14th St. Mary’s took
part in The Great Big Green Week when a series of talks from experts
on such things as bees, swifts and life in the oceans, was laid on,
followed by a simple lunch, all on Church premises. In the process we
were lucky enough to meet some rescued baby swifts.
For many years there has been a group of swifts that return every year
to nest in the eaves of the church building and whenever building
work is being undertaken the builders are always asked to take the
swifts into consideration. Recently to encourage the swifts even more
one pf our dedicated swift watchers has donated two purpose built
nesting stations that have now been installed under the eaves of the
Community Hall which stands on church ground. Sadly so far this year
the swifts have not nested though they can be seen circling around the
church building. Continued on p12 >>>