CHIPPENHAM NEWS: TROUBLESOME rabbits have been plaguing a cemetery by digging holes in freshly dug graves.

Box Cemetery's three-acre burial ground, off Bath Road, is covered in large holes dug by the burrowing bunnies.

One of the cheeky culprits was captured on camera by Chippenham News photographer Glenn Phillips within minutes of him visiting the site.

Parish councillor Barry Sims said there were about a dozen rabbits and efforts by pest controllers to bring down numbers had only had short term success.

"They seem to be rather prolific and they cause tremendous damage digging areas up," he said.

"They dig holes about the size of a shoe. When we are trying to present nicely prepared lawns to people the rabbits get in and ruin it and where there is freshly dug earth over a grave they find it easier to dig down in.

"They tend to dig where the graves are. They don't go down as far as the coffins but go down a foot or so."

He said some of the headstones had started to tilt and he thinks the rabbits might be the cause.

Any that are loose have to be removed or laid flat on the ground for safety.

He thinks the solution might be to get a pest control officer to visit once a year.

"A pest control officer came once before and had some success but six months later they are all back again.

"The rabbits are trying to dig burrows for themselves. Left to nature the whole area would be a labyrinth of burrows.

"People put flowers down and within half an hour they have been eaten."

but a secret garden has been unearthed

A SECRET garden has been discovered hidden away in the corner of a graveyard.

It is hoped the garden, in the grounds of Box's Chapel of Rest, off Bath Road, can be made into a peaceful haven for visitors to the cemetery.

Just like the garden in Frances Hodgson Burnett's novel The Secret Garden, it was overgrown and neglected when parish councillor Barry Sims discovered it.

In the novel, sickly child Mary Lennox finds the garden locked away behind a wooden door but this garden was discovered hidden behind a wall of bramble bushes and laurel hedges.

Cllr Sims said: "I didn't know a thing about the secret garden but someone mentioned trying to resurrect it and I set out to find it.

"We struggled and hacked our way through this hedge and there it was. It looked an absolute mess. It was totally overgrown. There was a bramble patch the size of a small bungalow.

"We got in there on a couple of Saturdays. There was a whole group of us. We spent 10 or 12 hours there altogether and cleared away most of the undergrowth.

"By the end of the season we are hoping to have it in fairly good shape."

He said one woman had planted daffodils in the garden so that she had a fresh supply when she visited the graveyard.

He said the garden, which is about 75ft long and 25ft wide, is not ready for visitors yet but he hopes it can be transformed into a quiet area for people to sit and relax and children to play safely while their parents visit the cemetery.