Transform the Walled Garden,Croydon

We are very pleased to announce that our contractors were able to complete Phase 1 of our project during the last week of September. The timescale to the project has changed as an impact of the coronavirus pandemic and the schedule of our contractors. The Walled Garden was closed to the public as the pathway works for 4 'garden rooms' were completed and we are delighted with the results. The response from our partnering organisations,visitors to the garden and our volunteers has been overwhelming and it has been great to see people with pushchairs, older people with mobility difficulties and those in wheelchairs feel able to enter the two herb gardens safely. We have enjoyed watching children using the wiggly paths in the Flower Fairy Garden and the Potager garden. Work will continue on the rest of the pathways and performance space in the early spring. In the meantime, we have been running small group gardening sessions for our volunteers under current social distancing guidelines who have enjoyed being in the garden and helping them work towards improving their physical and mental health wellbeing. We thank our funders,donors and all our stakeholders for your patience as we work towards completing this project.

Now that many restrictions and regulations imposed during the pandemic are being eased, we thought it timely to give our supporters and stakeholders an update on our fabulous ‘Transform the Walled Garden’ project. When 2020 started, like everyone in the world, we had no idea about what was coming down the line in terms of Covid-19. Instead, we were looking to build on the extraordinary success of our 2019 crowd-funding effort which, with the wonderful help of our supporters, had raised all the money needed to make the 'Transform Walled Garden' project come to life. We’re delighted to say that, due to all the great support we've received from you, it’s become one of the most successful fundraising campaigns run in Croydon and the volunteers can't wait to make it a reality. Despite Covid-19 delaying the project, work has continued to progress with volunteers following a thorough procurement process in order to satisfy the requirements of the council and GLA, to select eco-friendly materials, an experienced contractor, confirm the site requirements, obtain final costs and do the formal landscape designs. We are now awaiting various Covid-19 related health and safety details from the contractor and start dates. As you can see from the new photo impression above, while the fundamental plans for the Walled Garden, as outlined on the artist’s impression and in the Spacehive details, have not been greatly modified, practicalities such as the slope (topography) and drainage of the site and the disabled path width requirements of the Sensory Trust and council, have led to some small changes. The resulting design will deliver all the improvements to the Walled Garden as outlined in the crowdfunding campaign. Volunteers have continued to present the project to park users, existing partner groups. We’re pleased to say that in the last few weeks we’ve also had increased interest from the community and other groups due, not only to the mental health benefits gardening offers but also due to the meeting/performance space being considered a comparatively Covid-19 safe environment. We welcome your feedback as sponsors of the project and the final scaled landscape plans and the written descriptions of the project are on our website for you to review www.parkhillpark.org.uk

The 20th October 2019 saw the finale of the Dance Festival Croydon curated by Anusha Subramanyam & Vipul Sangoi of Beeja Dance, long term volunteers for the Friends of Park Hill Park and the brains behind the dance events we've had in the park, including the BIG DANCE festival in 2017 and the Peace & Wellbeing Festival in 2018. Joint chairs of the Freinds of Park Hill Park, Catherine & Josi were delighted to attend the event at the Fairfield Halls and see an amazing cross-section of dance genres and performances from both amateur and professional dancers. Anusha and Vipul have advised the friends as to what would be the best type of design for the performance space in the new Walled Garden design.

We've been having various local groups help us clean up the park and walled garden ready for the winter. One of the best and sunniest days for this was on the 21st September, World Clean up the day, when the Friends of Park Hill Park were joined by the awesome & very bouncy Good Gym Volunteers. The Good Gym Croydon group are part of the Walled Garden project and for more than a year been regularly help create the community garden. If you've not heard of the Good Gym they run together to a spot to help a community for an hour and then run again.

Great first steps toward our goal to transform the walled garden. On the 22nd October, the co-chair of the Friends, Josi, met with members of the Addagrip team who are the 1st of our prospective contractors for the new disabled paths in the Walled Garden. It was a beautiful day and Donna from Addagrip commented on how surprised she was that Croydon town centre had such a wonderful green space like the Walled Garden. We will be sending Addagrip, and 2 other major path specialists, a full tender document for the construction of the Walled Gardens disabled pathways to ensure we get not only the best possible price but also the best possible material for the design. We aim to have the work completed in Spring 2020 to ensbale volunteers to start planting the new design.

£30,800 before the end date !! - Thank you, thank you, thank you! We can't believe it! Thanks to everyone who's pledged, shared information, asked friends & family and come up and had a cup of tea in the Walled Garden over the last 6 manic months of crowdfunding. The project is now in what's called 'over funding' so if you still want to pledge and be part of this amazing project please, please do !!! Please be part of bringing this forgotten gem back to life and full use for the community !!!!