Volunteers find the Kitchen Garden
Date Published: 27/03/2009
Enfield College students have made big inroads into preparation work for the restoration of the Victorian Kitchen gardens at Myddelton House in Enfield, which is now underway.
The volunteer programme, in association with the Prince’s Trust has enabled ten local youngsters aged between 16 and 25 the chance to gain experience of horticulture as part of their Personal Development course at the College. Myddelton House Gardens at Bulls Cross in Enfield were created by E. A. Bowles in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, after his death in 1954, the gardens were neglected until the Lee Valley Regional Park Authority took them over and started to restore them in 1984. Much of the gardens has been restored to their former glory and are open daily to the public from 10:00am, but with aide from the Heritage Lottery Fund it has now been possible to start work on restoring the Kitchen Gardens.
The students have spent two weeks in the gardens first of all finding then clearing the vegetable beds, and although some of the work was intense, they have all said they enjoyed the experience and found being able to see the difference they had made was very satisfying. They also learnt how to build a wildlife log pile to help invertebrates and have used some of the trees cut down to construct a small one in the conservation area that will be left in the kitchen garden.
At the same time the students were in the gardens, other work has been started: the area around the buildings has been cleared to enable renovation work of the buildings, this has involved a lot of work on trees which had been allowed to take over the kitchen gardens in the years of neglect after the death of Mr. Bowles.
The restoration work is expected to be complete by April 2011, for more information, please visit www.leevalleypark.org.ukor telephone the Information Service on 08456 770 600
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For more information, photographs and interviews; contact Neal Grant, Lee Valley Regional Park Authority on 01992 709830, (M) 07785 303718, (E) ngrant@leevalleypark.org.uk
Lee Valley Regional Park stretches 26 miles along the course of the River Lee from Ware in Hertfordshire to East India Dock Basin on the Thames. The Park’s 10,000 acres comprises of a mix of heritage sites, nature reserves and open green spaces and sports facilities.
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