FOLLOWING the letter last week on Elgar's grave and St Wulstan's churchyard I wish to inform your readers of the facts.

The churchyard at St Wulstan's is maintained solely by the voluntary efforts of members of our congregation. The immediate area around Elgar's grave is gardened under the direction of the Elgar Society, which also provides the flowers.

The "abandoned cars" are parked on land not owned by the church. While noting and sympathising with your correspondent's comments the landowner is perfectly within his rights to park his old vehicles on his own land.

Five years ago, when we started our restoration appeal, our first action was to spend over £15,000 on refurbishing the churchyard. Malvern Hills District Council made a contribution of £3,000 specifically for this work, and its donation is clearly acknowledged on the notice by Elgar's grave. The Malvern Gazette gave wide publicity to this refurbishment.

Since then over £30,000 has been spent on essential repairs and maintenance to the church itself. Our priority now is to re-roof the church and restore the interior to the way the architect designed it; we are still £120,000 short of what is needed to finance this work. Once this work has been completed we have intentions of improving the rest of the land around the church, but we must point out that removing the cypress trees downhill from Elgar's grave will not restore the view over the countryside as there is another line of trees around 50 yards further east on land we do not own.

If your correspondent or other readers wish to make donations to St Wulstan's Restoration Appeal they can be sent to me and I will be pleased to send Gift Aid forms if these are requested.

LT COL J M SWEETMAN, chairman, St Wulstan's Restoration Appeal, Zourka, Cowleigh Park, Malvern.