Minster Matters
Your Friendly Village Newsletter Issue Number 107 : September 2009 ISSN 1755-9502 (Print) : ISSN 1755-9510 (Online) : ISSN 1758-4175 (CD-ROM)
Logo designed by Jack Lamport
Minster Matters have very recently introduced recycling points around the village for your dead batteries. You can recycle any normal D, C, AA, AAA cells, PP3’s and watch batteries, hearing aid batteries, phone batteries etc. In fact any of the small dry batteries you use in and around your home.
The scheme is run by a company called BatteryBack Ltd and they will collect free of charge from schools or civic buildings, so we have leased four containers from them, at an initial cost of £10, which we have now sited in Attwells, The Attic and Bens, as they are the three outlets in the village who sell batteries. The fourth is at the Library, where we will then have them collected from, in bulk, as BatteryBack class this as a civic building. For individual shopkeepers in the village to send their own would incur them costs, but by us centralising the main collection point at the library they will be collected from us for free. So no excuses for putting them into your domestic waste, just pop them in your pocket and drop them into a bin at one of these four places when you’re next passing.
The renovation of the late-nineteenth century churchyard gates has been executed with pride and professionalism by Mark and his staff at Broadstairs Metal Craft and they are now fully operational for the first time in about twenty years, at which time the double gates were damaged by HGVs on three separate occasions. Following the damage, the gates merely hung in a sad, neglected and in-operable state for about fifteen years. When the new paths were laid to the churchyard under a MATCH project, it was found necessary to remove the double gates for ground levelling purposes, and so they were taken away for safekeeping. Although numerous requests were made to TDC who are responsible for the maintenance and repair of the churchyard and its boundaries it wasn’t until this year that Paul Verrall, TDC’s Open Spaces Manager, was able to allocate a very small budget to this project. Although this was insufficient for the complete refurbishment, MATCH was fortunately able to step in, using funds from an on-going conservation improvement budget. And so, thanks to this partnership funding, we now have beautifully restored double gates offering vehicular access to the church when needed, and a single gate for pedestrians. This pedestrian gate is of a design which allows a double swing action that self closes. Gates of this kind would have been quite common at churchyards, schools and the like during the Victorian period, though not many are thought to have remained intact. Not surprisingly then, that these wrought iron gates (probably originally crafted in the forge opposite), are Grade 2 listed! Another worthy project, which has further enhanced our village conservation area.
Note: change of advertised venue now at Parkminster, in the Abbey Grounds (former museum site) See page 25 for further information E-mail : editorialteam@minstermatters.org.uk Skype us at: editor.minstermatters Electronic Copy, Podcast and Blog: http://www.minstermatters.org.uk Fax No: 07092 891864 Find and Read us on Facebook - search for : Minster Matters Published by: Minster Matters, c/o Library & Neighbourhood Centre, 4A Monkton Road, Minster-in-Thanet, Nr. Ramsgate, Kent CT12 4EA UK