This will mean that the Gardens Trust will have a level of financial security through the winter to enable us to continue to look after the Gardens and make them open for the pleasure, leisure, health and wellbeing of all our visitors and users.

Hoorah!

The government funding follows on from the emergency support we had from lottery players to enable us to open immediately after lockdown.

We are proud of our independence and particularly of our services to heritage, culture and communities. But without official financial support over the last few months the Gardens would have closed, fallen into disrepair and deprived hundreds of people of the pleasure and sanctuary the Gardens provide.

We are one of 445 heritage organisations across the country set to receive a lifesaving financial boost from the government £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund to help them through the coronavirus pandemic. We feel exceedingly privileged and lucky to be one of the few.

The funding will help maintain our staff posts and keep our bills paid – a vital stability for us to meet  future challenges.  The support also means we can plan and make changes to the way welcome people now, and in the future.

As winter closes in during the pandemic, we know that getting fresh air in a beautiful and safe outdoor place and finding some peace and cultural interest will be a vital lifeline for many of our visitors, and volunteers!

The Cultural Recovery Fund will enable us to do this and will support us planning for a better future too.

#hereforculture

The unprecedented government investment through the £1.57bn Cultural Recovery Fund is to be roundly welcomed. Culture creates jobs, supports livelihoods, and brings joy to everyone.

More info from the DCMS about the fund

This vital funding is from the Culture Recovery Fund for Heritage and the Heritage Stimulus Fund – funded by Government and administered at arms length by Historic England and the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Both funds are part of the Government’s £1.57 billion Culture Recovery Fund which is designed to secure the future of Britain’s museums, galleries, theatres, independent cinemas, heritage sites and music venues with emergency grants and loans.

433 organisations will receive a share of £67 million from the Culture Recovery Fund for Heritage to help with costs for operating, reopening and recovery. This includes famous heritage sites across the country, from Wentworth Woodhouse in Yorkshire to Blackpool’s Winter Gardens, Blyth Tall Ship to the Severn Valley Railway, the International Bomber Command Centre in Lincolnshire to the Piecehall in Halifax. The funds will save sites that are a source of pride for communities across the country.

12 organisations, including English Heritage, Landmark Trust, Historic Royal Palaces and the Canal and River Trust, will receive £34 million from the Heritage Stimulus Fund to restart construction and maintenance on cherished heritage sites to preserve visitor attractions and protect livelihoods for some of the most vulnerable heritage specialists and contractors in the sector.

The Architectural Heritage Fund (AHF) has also been awarded a grant from the Culture Recovery Fund through Historic England. The AHF will use the funding to support charities and social enterprises occupying historic buildings to develop new business plans and strategies for organisations affected by the pandemic.

Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said:

“As a nation it is essential that we preserve our heritage and celebrate and learn from our past. This massive support package will protect our shared heritage for future generations, save jobs and help us prepare for a cultural bounceback post covid.”

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As a lot of our musical friends are desperately missing somewhere to play, we thought it would be nice for them, and us, if we shared our space with them and you as where better to hear some lovely music than in the safety of a gorgeous outdoor space?

Now in normal times we’d organise well ahead as so many people have busy lives and full diaries but let’s face it right now not many of us have social engagements or much else come to that in our diaries. This might give us a rare chance to programme at quite short notice in order to give us all the best shot with England’s unpredictable weather right now.

So what are we thinking? 

Well, be prepared at just a week’s notice to be invited to some Summer Evening Musical Soirees across a range of musical styles, we’re thinking some Classical, Folk and Americana, Mellow Jazz, Acoustic Reggae, Light Opera and more. All to be enjoyed with safe distancing, good company and you’re most welcome to bring your own picnic or refreshments so no hanging around at a bar or such.

So signup for our newsletter or check back here under events to be sure to see what we’re up to.

Stay safe everyone and look forward to seeing you soon

<John Mostyn,  Business Development Manager (jobshare)>

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In the ‘New Normal’ we have revamped some of the way we do things and almost all activities now will be ‘pre-booked’.

So, in addition to normal Day Entry and our popular picnic takeaway ‘Cream Tea in A Box’ we have for visitors delight;

First Songs musical sessions for babies and their grown ups and Relaxed Concerts by the renowned  B’Opera who create  beautiful music for tiny ears.

Yoga sessions with Yogi Clair  – two sessions in the outdoors follow by a cream tea.

We have so many charming spaces in the Gardens and we are really pleased to be able to use them to enhance these sessions – what a memory to be made! Baby’s first ‘move and groove’ under the heritage apple trees.

The size of the Archery Lawn of course allows us to spread out and keep safe while still enjoying live performances from great local theatre companies.

Tread the Boards based in Stratford and Heartbreak Productions based in Leamington are bouncing back from lockdown with specially adapted performances for the family audience

Tickets for Wind in the Willows and Alice in Lockdown will go on sale on this site by the end of this week.

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The urge to be creative during lockdown has been fuelled, happily, by many tv programmes, blogs and online memes. Hopefully the creativity will not be lost as we emerge slowly from our hibernation.

The radio poet Ian Macmillan, the Barnsley Bard, works extensively with arts groups in Yorkshire. Attached is a document (.pdf) with some really useful prompts and exercises to get our poetry going – whatever age we are.

Creative Directions Resource Pack  wearedarts.org.uk

One of the styles of poem popular in victorian times was the ‘Acrostic’ .

We’ve had a go — how about you?

Here is Ian’s

Here is ours

What about …..?

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We try to keep some of the really old varieties going, but we have also wanted to encourage people – especially children – to feel confident about growing their own food.

In February and March schools and family visitors have great fun planting beans and watching them grow; at home or in the Gardens. Many of these beans get planted up in our own gardens to make an annual Bean Tunnel.

Come summer the tunnel is a lush green place to crawl in, explore and peek out to the world. And what a revelation … those long green things hanging down are beans you can eat!

Potatoes

Everyone loves a potato. When we can, we grow some of the oldest varieties from 100 or even 300 years ago – a way of ensuring the biodiversity of our food stock is kept.

But also, potatoes are pretty easy – 1 potato planted, makes a whole plate of chips or mash!

We usually have two weekly visiting groups from special schools and colleges: Hallmoor School and Trinity Specialist college. We are missing their input and they are missing their visits to the outdoors here. Our gardeners have been looking after their plot  while they’re away… potatoes and beans doing fine. Let’s hope they can harvest them later in the year.

What you can do

The bean tunnel is partially potted up, so hopefully in the summer people can see that. Why not encourage young ones in your household to plant some beans themselves. When you  visit us later they can compare how tall they have grown. Beans, sunflowers and peas are relatively easy now. Here’s a great ‘how to’  from Cbeebies. https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/makes/plant-pots?collection=national-gardening-week

Even if you are not growing potatoes yourself, you can help the farmers who are.

Good and safe food starts with the growers, but many small growers are struggling to keep up in the current times. Some local organisations have banded together to help. Slow Food Birmingham,  and two of groups we already work with, The Real Junk Food Project and The Active WellBeing Society,   have teamed up for a great project – can you help?

The potato project

Charlie, a farmer north of the city, had a field full of spuds and no prospect of selling them because of the drop in trade in the hospitality sector.

There are 10 tonnes of potatoes

Charlie needs to dig up the potatoes and find new customers fast or let them rot and add to the growing numbers of food that is wasted, before it can be eaten. It’s also important that the growers get a decent price for their work and that the potatoes get to the most vulnerable too.

The organisations above are matching up emergency food needs and the general public.  Click below to see how it works.

Buying, donating, paying forward and receiving spuds… all in one project.

If you can’t participate directly – do spread the word about what we can do to make the future of food security better.

http://slowfoodbirmingham.co.uk/campaigns/?fbclid=IwAR2MmZqEt7m2WjZZ-mBPx4LwYdWRr0X4Dznww3HiVvtX-1sMFwyNP9GORZo

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Plants had been gathered and collected over time for their economic potential as crops or medicine, or for their rarefied beauty and shown off by the rich and powerful,or subject to scientific scrutiny.

While the time of the great 19^th century plant hunters was still to come, the variety of plants, their very ‘exoticism’ was valued over and above more modest plants which might have been grown and used for centuries.

Today in the Gardens they all mix together, from little ‘weeds’ to flamboyant dragons. We are so used to some, we forget that their origins may be far, far away or from a long time ago.

Re-finding the wonder –  and recognising our luck – that we are so entwined with, and dependent on, other places in the world is perhaps one of the humbling outcomes of the current crisis.

…. And the music?

In 1738 George Frederick Handel premiered his opera, Xerxes, in London.

As with many theatrical productions of the time the ‘idea’ of the countryside was shifting from that ‘uncivilised place’ which is dirty, smelly and dangerous, to being a pastoral idyll, a place of purity and innocence.

Handel – a German composer  who spent most of his life in London – reworked an older Italian song by Cavalli and Bononcini. The opera is about the ancient King of Persia, Xerxes. Here the American countertenor, Christopher Lowrey  sings, in Italian, with a group of musicians playing instruments made variously in Paris, the Netherlands, Florence and Germany.

Like our Garden…a composition made beautiful because the world comes together in it.

Maybe you will like the music too.

 (feel free to donate to the musicians)

By the way, the character is singing the praises of a Plane tree (Platanus orientalis ) – No, I don’t think we  have one ..

*Five continents not 7 in the Gardens. Westerners had not reached Australia by the 1760s, and Antarctica,was a bit harsh

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A great way of remembering a time when she, and others, could take their reflective and creative time in the Gardens.

Thanks Anita.

Enjoy…go create! At home – and one day soon- in the Gardens

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Bug houses, Bee B&Bs, smile stones,  birdfeeders and growing veg are all featured on the current Newsround page… all things our Unplug and Play sessions really encourage.

Until we can welcome you back into the Gardens – why not practice with the Beeb.

I’m looking forward to a set of activities in the Gardens, led by enthusiastic, imaginative and skilled children!

Yes, we can make it happen.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/52009318

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