Story by Sam Petherick

The war memorial in the grounds of St Mary Magdalene Church in central Richmond has been given a stunning flowery facelift as Remembrance Day draws near.

The restoration project was carried out across two Saturdays this month by members of the charity GoodGym Richmond, community group Richmond Society and south Richmond ward councillors Chas Warlow and Chris Varley.

They were joined by the church's vicar Reverend Canon Wilma Roest, her curate Revd Charlie Smith (both pictured) and pupils from Ibstock school in Roehampton volunteering as part of their Duke of Edinburgh silver award.

First the group cut down six cypress trees that were obscuring the monument and undermining itsfoundations, removed a stubborn network of routes and cut all the piles of branches into small bits to fit into a 1 ton garden waste bag for compost.

The volunteers returned over the weekend (Saturday, October 22) to replant the bed with a range of seasonal perennials and flowers.

In total they laid an amazing 3,100 bulbs of snowdrops, tulips, alliums and daffodils and a further 258 plants of cyclamen, geraniums, deer ferns and Mexican daisies on top.

All followed with a good sweep to clean up from all the digging!

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