Calne Town Council has allocated £5,000 towards maintenance costs for the Holy Trinity Churchyard, which has been a place of burial since the 1850s and is run by the parish of Calne and Blackland.
The £5,000 grant, to be used next year, will alleviate the pressure of financing churchyard maintainance, which has become a struggle for regular congregations of the parish.
It is visited daily by residents in Calne, and has ten war graves from the First World War, eight from the Second World War and the grave of a Royal Navy officer who fought at Trafalgar.
The Rev Bob Kenway, the chairman of Calne and Blackland Parochial Church Council, said the total cost of maintenance last year was £10,642, which included regular emptying of the churchyard skip.
He said: “Whilst the maintenance of the churchyard is the responsibility of the parochial church council it does serve the whole of Calne and is widely viewed as the second town cemetery.
“We are very grateful for the donation of £1,000 that we received in 2012 from Calne Town Council but we are now in the situation where we need to find the full cost of maintenance met from outside of parochial church council resources.”
Town councillors agreed to give the parish of Calne and Blackland half of the £10,000 they asked for, something which was recommended by the town council’s finance working group.
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