palms in historic St. Peter's Church graveyard are being cut down because they are intruding on graves.

Two of the trees, which church officials also feel are a danger to visitors, have already been chopped down.

And a gnarled cedar which has stood in a corner of the graveyard for centuries faces the axe next week.

St. George's resident Mrs. Sylvia Shorto said the ancient cedar had inspired a Charles Demuth painting, now hanging in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.

A bougainvillea climbing up it and several of its limbs have already been severed in the week-long clean-up effort, ordered by Rev. Anthony Hollis.

Church officials say trees and foliage were hiding and breaking up a number of graves. And there was a danger of one of the dead cedars falling on a tourist.

One tomb has had its front pushed in by intrusive tree roots. Church groundskeeper Mr. James Pitt said: "If you were down there sleeping and someone pushed your house in, you wouldn't like it! If a tree is pushing in a gravestone it's got to be moved by law.'' Mr. Pitt said the cedar "was on its way out anyway''.

It was dead and termite-ridden and about to fall down, he said.

Another cedar on the outside of the graveyard wall was also being cut down. It was being propped up by two palm trees and could easily fall in bad weather.

"They could fall at any time and break a tombstone -- the black ones you can't buy anymore. Or it could fall on a tourist and kill them. We are just looking out for the safety of all the tourists that visit here everyday.'' About two cedar trees and a handful of Chinese palms had been chopped down so far, he said.

Mr. Pitt said he was waiting to chop down the two corner cedars, because there was a beehive in one of them.

Agriculture and Fisheries were going to try and get rid of the bees this week so groundsmen would not get stung cutting them down.

He assured that the oldest tree in the graveyard, a 500-year-old cedar, would not be cut down. The church had laid concrete under it several years ago to secure it, he said.

After the clean-up, Rev. Hollis plans to hire someone to go over the writing on the grave stones, some of which is barely visible. Some of the graves date back to the 1600s.

NEXT TO GO -- St. Peter's Church Graveyard groundskeeper Mr. James Pitt chops limbs off a centuries-old Bermuda cedar tree, to be completely cut down next week because church folk consider it a danger to visitors -- and graves.