Come to Primrose Day at Newtown Road Cemetery

A WARM welcome is extended to the general public to join us on Saturday at Newtown Road Cemetery to celebrate National Primrose Day.

The Friends group have organised a programme from 10am to 4pm which includes tours and talks featuring the lives of the people buried there.

There will be refreshments in the cemetery chapel and an exhibition of the group’s work, including a display of the wild flowers currently blooming.

National Primrose Day was established by Queen Victoria to remember her favourite Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, who died on April 19, 1881.

Queen Victoria sent a funeral wreath of yellow primroses, and the same flowers decorated both his tomb in Hughenden, and his statue in Parliament Square, London, where they are placed on the anniversary of his death.

The name primrose comes from ‘Prima Rose’ or first rose.

There are about 500 species, which include both the wild and cowslip primrose, and, although known as traditionally yellow in colour, there are also white, red and pink varieties. The primula species have been hybridised to produce many garden varieties sold as polyanthus bedding plants.

The primrose can bloom from

December to May and forms an important source of nectar for spring butterflies and insects.

It is suitable for human consumption and can be eaten in salads and as a cocktail garnish, but its bulbs are poisonous for animals.

Weather permitting the primrose will be the star of its own show within the Newtown Road Cemetery on Primrose Day.

LYNETTE EDWELL

Publicity officer

Friends of Newtown Road Cemetery Group

(01635) 820445