A churchyard is a patch of land adjoining or surrounding a church which is usually owned by the relevant church or local parish itself. In the Scots language or Northern English language, this can also be known as a kirkyard or kirkyaird.
In England, the fact that in an open field village there were very few fenced areas meant that the yew trees needed for longbows were commonly grown in the churchyard since the foliage is poisonous to cattle.
Churchyards can be host to unique and ancient habitats because they may remain significantly unchanged for hundreds of years.[1]
A churchyard should not be confused with a graveyard or a cemetery. While churchyards were historically often used as graveyards, they can also be any patch of land on church grounds, even without a place of burial.
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Historically the most common use of churchyards was as a consecrated burial ground known as a graveyard. Graveyards were usually established at the same time as the building of the relevant place of worship (which can date back to the 6th to 14th centuries) and were often used by those families who could not afford to be buried inside or beneath the place of worship itself. Most headstones and other memorials are of the 17th century at the earliest, as ground would often be reused for further burials and only some families could afford any memorials.
The use of churchyards as burial grounds for the deceased was discontinued all over Europe in various stages between the 18th to 19th centuries due to lack of space for new headstones. In many European states, burial in churchyards was outlawed altogether either by royal decrees or government legislation for public hygiene reasons and portions of churchyards were taken in order for roads to be built or expanded. The loss of part (or all) of the churchyard, often led also to the removal and permanent loss of centuries old graves and headstones. In some cases the human remains were exhumed and the gravestones transferred. In other cases, all headstones have been removed, to create a park-like environment, or simply to facilitate the seasonal cutting and removal of grass or weeds.
A very small number of churchyards across the world are still used as graveyards today.