A bit of background
I rented Room 3 at Goldsmiths Community Centre in mid-February as the base for a project Hubbub Community Media Resource, funded by Whitefoot and Downham Local Assemblies. The project helps local groups and organisations with publicity, marketing and fundraising using social media and aims to paint a picture of the local area through community reporting by adult education students and local people. Room 3 has exclusive use of what is known as the 'pensioners' garden (although I've not seen a pensioner in it!).
The garden had been neglected since the group who maintained it stopped. I'd had a go at it a couple of years' earlier, at that time a new Wellbeing Service at the centre had been set up and I had the idea to create a 'physic' or apothecary garden to complement it, growing herbs, aromatic and other plants used in traditional medicine, for learning and enjoyment. I applied for funding, didn't get it, and moved on to other things. When I came back and looked out on it, the idea resurfaced!
Bring a Plant Day
First of all thank you very much to all
who came to the Bring a Plant Day on Monday 16 April , for their labour
and plants, and for the fantastic write up
of the day on this blog. There's not much more I can add, except it was
quite spontaneously planned but we chose the right day for it! The
plants have all been well watered now, despite their drought tolerance
and a hosepipe ban. From an occasional hacking away in my lunch hour,
the concerted effort by everyone last Monday has really made a
difference and I met some lovely new people who are as interested in
gardening as I am.
A word on those brambles.
The green palisade fence which was put up last year augmented a chain
link fence which had been there since the 1970s. The brambles were grown
to stop intruders, and were pretty successful although the centre is
not immune to stuff being hurled over or finding a way through.
When
it opened in 1939 the community centre had no fence at all and opened
out on to a recreation space of 13 acres, where the Excalibur prefabs
now stand (not for much longer).
The
community centre has been inextricably linked with gardening and food
production over the past 70+ years. One of the first groups to be set up
was the Goldsmiths Community Centre Gardening Society (now Goldsmiths
Gardeners), formed in 1939 and who manage the Crutchley/Hazelbank Road
allotments to this day. They held their first annual flower and
vegetable show at the centre on August Bank Holiday 1939 and from
1940-1945 managed the open space as 144 allotments - 'Dig for Victory'!
Thanks to local residents I have copies of certificates awarded by the
Society for 'Truss of Tomatoes' and 'Prettiest Front Garden'!
For
more than 30 years the Gardeners Society acted as a garden centre,
providing seeds, bulbs, plants and compost to the local community. They
still meet in the growing season on Sunday mornings at the centre. If
you would like to know more about the history of the community centre
click here
A big thanks again to everyone and to all the contacts I've made subsequently!
