Thurso Cemetery Friends

11/06/2026

Lovely to welcome 3 new regular volunteers this week: Sam, Jessie and Maisie, and one visitor from Australia: Kate, who worked super hard on her holiday! 🇦🇺👋

Inspired by the great work done on the cemetery drive last year by our friends in the Thurso Beach And Town Initiative, we cleared the weeds and leaves ourselves this week to keep it tidy this summer! 🧹🦺❤️‍🩹

Just one teeny problem: we are going to need to buy some more hi-vis vests and tools for our steadily growing team…💰💰💰🤷🏻‍♀️

If you would like to support our organisation financially, we welcome donations of any amount at any time! 🙏🦺🧹🪴🙏

🌟😇If you can afford to set up a standing order of £5 a month or more, and you include your name as a bank reference, then you will officially become a “Thurso Cemetery Friend” - this is a great way to help the organisation if you find yourself unable to volunteer for whatever reason. ❤️‍🩹🙏
Thank you so much for considering how you can support our work! 🙏😇🌟

Thurso Cemetery Friends
Account number 00617335
Sort Code 83-25-06

04/06/2026

New wildflowers are appearing every single day on the terraces of Thurso cemetery! Here are this week’s beautiful bloomers! 🤩💐

If you’d like to volunteer as a wildflower expert, just get in touch! 🙏
We have a small team working behind the scenes identifying and recording flowers as they appear through the year. This record will inform our decisions going forwards about other wildflowers we might choose to to introduce to the wild terrace. We want to make it a heavenly place for pollinators to make their home! 😇🐝🦋🙏

If you know your wildflowers, please do get in touch to join the team! 😀

02/06/2026

With Species on the Edge – we just got recognised as one of their top fans! 🎉Trying to learn how best to look after our special neighbours, the Great Yellow Bumblebee. 🐝🌻🙏

01/06/2026

A very special little lost dog, found in the cemetery this morning and he’s clearly been blown off course by the wind. I’m sure I’ve seen him sitting on the plinth of someone’s headstone but I don’t know which one! He’s sitting safely in the bus shelter in the car park now. Hopefully someone will claim him soon. 🤞 Thanks for sharing! 🙏

28/05/2026

Thanks to reporter Iain Grant at the John O'Groat Journal for publicising our group! Our drop-in volunteer sessions are Tuesday mornings and Wednesday evenings - we’re starting to build up a great team of volunteers! 🤩🙏

A band of community-minded volunteers have got together to give some much-needed TLC to Thurso cemetery.

Read more in the comments 👇

26/05/2026

This morning as we were mowing in the new part of the cemetery, our volunteer Darren, who has a special interest in the heritage of the cemetery, set to work to begin to reveal the rails which historically were attached to a winch on the terraces in the oldest section of the cemetery.

You can see both rails are still there and we’d love to hear from local folk if they have any information, pictures or personal memories about this fascinating piece of historical engineering, which is perhaps unique to the terraces of Thurso cemetery?

We’re aware that the four terraces of our cemetery are an extraordinary piece of civil engineering and we’re keen to gather together as much information as we can about its history. Thanks!🙏

In other news, our blooming wildflowers for this week are a broad leaf marsh orchid, a purple bush vetch and the tiny yellow tormentil ( potentilla) - and great germination of clover seeds on the lower path. 👌

20/05/2026

Tonight we welcomed two new volunteers, Den and Andy. We decided to focus our work up at the very top of the cemetery around Andy’s family grave. Along with Bruce, Susie & Katrina, Andy worked hard on the edging while Den got her step count up by tidying up wind blown & withered flowers, and watering fresh flowers, across the whole cemetery site! 🌻🌹💐
Also nice to have a chat this evening with Darren Manson who has a special interest in the heritage of the terraced section of the cemetery and is keen to support our work there.

18/05/2026

More beautiful wildflowers appearing in the wild section of the old cemetery - definitely bluebells, and does any know what the yellow ones are? Marsh marigolds maybe?? 🤷🏻‍♀️
Maybe Caithness and Sutherland Countryside Rangers can help to identify them…. 😉🤞🙏

13/05/2026

We’d love to expand our volunteer team so please share this post with your friends! 🙏❤️We are looking for adult volunteers, *who have lived experience of bereavement*, to help to keep the newer sections of the cemetery neat and tidy. The work is therapeutic- everyone works at their own pace and just does whatever they feel able to do. 🌻🙏

The Highland Council manages the site and covers all essential tasks, so none of the volunteer tasks are mandatory- we just work to add that extra level of care and compassion: to make the site look cared for so that all visitors can feel at peace and welcome. ❤️‍🩹

Tasks include:
🌻Mowing grass
🌻Raking cut grass
🌻Litter picking
🌻Watering fresh flowers and planters
🌻Edging the paths
🌻Managing the bins

Volunteers can give as much or as little time as they’d like to. We have regular drop-in volunteering sessions (weather permitting) on Tuesday mornings 10-12 noon and on Wednesday evenings 7-8.30pm.

Regular volunteers will be given their own “Cemetery Friends” volunteer waistcoats 🦺and then they will be able to work as volunteers at any time during the week.

Many hands make light work, and the site is vast, so we welcome any adult who has themselves been bereaved and who would like to lend a hand.

Just turn up to a volunteering drop-in session or message us if you’d prefer to meet us at another time to talk about joining the team.

Thanks so much for considering whether you could help out at the cemetery. Hope to see you soon! 🤞🌻 🙏
Best wishes from
Katrina, Susie, Su, Bruce & Colin
(Thurso Cemetery Friends committee members)

12/05/2026

We managed to get quite a bit more edging done between the showers today! 😅🌦️Special thanks to the new Highland Council cemetery foreman Robbie who lent us his spare wheelbarrow, which made the job very much quicker today!🙏👌