Chipperfield residents are still fighting for a new cemetery

Back in 2009 it was announced that the cemetery at St Paul’s Church was nearly full, and since then residents have been battling to open another so that they can lay to rest in the village when they die.

In the last few weeks the Chipperfield Burial Ground Trust has been registered as a charity to run the graveyard, and it has re-submitted an approved planning application to build the new graveyard to the south of the existing churchyard.

Its chairman Stephen Morrill told the Gazette: “We’ve surveyed every house and 93 per cent were in favour of trying to get a further burial ground.

“If you take a walk around the church you will see the same names on the war memorials of families who still live here. They are part of the history of the village.

“There’s a strong feeling of wanting to buried in this village when their time comes.”

The group has already spent about £10,000 on the project, and would need to spend almost £20,000 on a brick wall sympathetic to the church’s design.

The final hurdles to seeing the graveyard given the green light would be for the land to be leased to the group from its owner, Dacorum Borough Council.

The nearest available graveyards are six miles away in Hemel Hempstead and Berkhamsted.