The Friends of Jesmond Old Cemetery had a great time at this year’s JCF. As usual, we had lots of lovely people join us on our tours and everyone enjoyed themselves in the sunshine. As well as finding out more about some of the people buried in JOC, the discussions over a cup of coffee and a cake after our tours are always well received and, inevitably, we always find out additional information and stories from these nice chats, all of which adds to the growing body of knowledge about Jesmond Old Cemetery.

We are very grateful to Chris Clarke and his colleagues from the Jesmond Community Forum for their help in facilitating our involvement in the Festival and, if you’ve never been to any of the many events on offer before, make sure you do next year, including giving us a visit!!

Ray and his wellies talking about Arthur Munro Sutherland

James highlighting the life of Julia Darling.

Gary and Susie entertaining their group of visitors!!

Tea, coffee and craic afterwards….

A five year project successfully completed.

We have recently completed our five year, £10,500 project to have our beautiful interpretation boards installed in Jesmond Old Cemetery. Find out more about how we did it here.

The Ladybirds are gathering…

As well as being a working cemetery, Jesmond Old Cemetery is also an integral component in the City’s wildlife corridor and hosts an abundance of insects, birds, flowers and trees. Of particular interest at this time of year is the lovely Ladybird and our friend from the Natural History Society of Northumbria, James Common, has described JOC as the Ladybird capital of the north!! As well as having James helping us with identification of our Ladybirds, we also have the input of Chris Wren, who is a keen photographer, and he has provided us with the following images and text, describing the various Ladybirds he has come across in JOC so far this year.

The above image shows two Harlequin Ladybirds (large and red with black spots), three Cream-spot Ladybird (brown with white spots), one 10-spot Ladybird (orange/red at the back) and one Pine Ladybird (small and black, with red spots).

The above image shows three Harlequin Ladybirds, one Cream-spot (top left) and one Orange Ladybird.

The image above shows all Harlequin Ladybirds, with several of each of the commonest colour forms.

This final image shows SIX species in one view…. they are: Orange Ladybird, 2-spot Ladybird (in two different colour forms), Cream-spot Ladybird, Harlequin Ladybird (in three different colour forms), 10-spot Ladybird and the Pine Ladybird.

So….. you have a photo guide and names….why not get yourself to JOC and see if you can spot any. For further help with identification, have a look here on the Natural History Society of Northumbria’s website.

If you want to see more fantastic images from Chris, check out his work here and here.