2013 Autumn Bulletin

First World War Centenary In 2014, the country will be commemorating the First World War and Bulletin already exhibitions are being planned at the AUTUMN 2013 Garden Museum in London and the Imperial War Museum. For Avon Gardens Trust, this commemoration year will be an appropriate Conservation time to research and collect material that Management Plans will reveal some of the stories that military The Garden History Society has published histories have overlooked. its list of Conservation Management Plans, available at www.parksandgardens.org For Avon there are nearly twenty sites listed, several of which, such as Prior Park and Warmley, have more than one conservation management plan. There are over 1,000 entries, the majority of which have been submitted by landscape architecture practices. Capability Brown The Great War Memorial in Arnos Vale Cemetery Tercentenary There are so many themes that can be Please take a look at the recently launched included such as the impact on the large Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown website. estates of the huge and tragic loss of man power as the departure and death www.capabilitybrown.org of gardeners during the war introduced a It is envisaged the content will grow as the generation of women to gardening. Another project takes off. Sign up now, the quarterly topic area is the impact of the conflict on Newsletter will come straight to your inbox - Britain’s heritage designed landscape an easy way to keep up with developments! as hundreds of parks and gardens were transformed by temporary uses such as training camps or food production. Another more tangible area for research is the legacy of landscape memorials and memorial landscapes across Avon. The planting around war memorials and graves is little-studied and yet this planting has such a powerful symbolic place in the memorials both public and private. The Trust is keen to hear about any stories or photographs that you might have. Please contact Ros Delany on [email protected] Sadly both ladies passed away recently Chairman’s Report and fitting tributes are paid to them later in this Bulletin. Now in its 27th year, the Trust has officially The gardens visited this year have been come of age and I am delighted that, an intriguing mixture of historic and new, building on the firm foundations that have restored or in need of careful restoration. been established by the committee, steady The unifying theme is that, as with all progress continues to be made. The gardens, they have been created as the committee members do marvellous work result of the vision of an individual. For and all thanks go to them and to those every garden owner, regardless of whom members of both the research and recording they are or what they own, a garden is an working group and the conservation group expression of his or her own personality who have contributed so much over the year. and is therefore unique. If you have been unable to come on a visit this year, I look Earlier in the year, Peggy Stembridge forward to you joining us next year. retired from the committee and it was for her exceptional contribution to the Trust I hope you enjoy this first autumn Bulletin that the committee unanimously agreed and find it both interesting and informative. to award her with Life Membership. Alan Finally, I would like to wish you all a happy Kempton also decided to stand down as and peaceful Christmas. Membership Secretary after seven years Ros Delany in the post. During his tenure, Alan set up a database of Trust members and became known as a great ‘behind the Avon Gardens Trust scenes’ helper as well our unofficial AGT welcomes new members: photographer as you may have seen in Andy and Gill Brown our publications and on our website. Gareth Edwards Anne Merriman has kindly taken on the role Jeffrey Freeman and Laurie Farnsworth of Membership Secretary. Cynthia Troup has Lesley and Nicholas Kinsley also joined the committee with responsibility for Education. Anne and Peter Hills, who have become actively involved in the Trust since moving to the area early last year, joined the committee in the autumn. These four new members, all with their different Patrons: Tony and Nancy Garrett Registered Charity No. 900377 Company No. 2357099 areas of experience and expertise, will be CREATE Centre, Smeaton Road, Bristol BS1 6XN a tremendous asset to the Trust. Chairman: Ros Delany 01275 371398 Despite the good summer this year, many [email protected] of our visits were conducted in the rain. Vice Chairman: Wendy Pollard 0117 973 7603 This was especially true of the visits to [email protected] Membership Sec.: Anne Merriman 01934 833619 Acton Court and Yeo Valley Organic [email protected] Gardens. Those of us who were at our Annual General Meeting at Acton Court Trust publications are edited by will remember the interesting and lively Emma Jones 0117 239 9715 [email protected] talk by Dorothy Brown, while those visiting Yeo Valley will recall Sheila Dart and her www.avongardenstrust.org.uk enthusiasm - even in the rain. 2 Education I loved visiting three of the primaries that had benefited from our grants in the summer As a new member term this year, and feel very enthusiastic of the committee, about facilitating and I have taken on the supporting gardening responsibility of in schools. Education. A retired primary teacher, Especially impressive I taught in various was Paulton Primary Bristol primaries School, where a keen Cynthia with children and Teaching Assistant their crop of potatoes at but mainly Victoria Freshford Primary School Park, Bedminster; had worked wonders Gay Elms, Withywood and finally All Hallows with the children Paulton Teaching Assistant who had designed Mrs Shackleton shows off tools Preparatory, Cranmore. bought with the AGT grant I retired early from teaching in 2002 in order a garden in rainbow to do the Garden History MA at Bristol colours, and gleefully showed off their University, where I had taken my first degree healthy looking vegetables and little pond. in Combined Arts in 1969. I am a governor of Cynthia Troup Healthy vegetables at Paulton my local primary and that role plus my four grandsons certainly keeps me up to date with what’s going on in education! The rainbow garden at Paulton Primary School Cynthia Troup STOP PRESS I have now approached the four LEAs in our area re. next year’s grant and they are spreading the word amongst their schools. Cynthia Troup Our New Membership Secretary I am very pleased to be the new enjoy meeting the members as well as Membership Secretary of the Trust, taking taming the computer programmes to make over from Alan Kempton. My husband, Tony, contacts easier. has been Treasurer since 2003 and I know On that note, it would be very helpful to quite a few members already. We can do have more e-mail addresses and telephone what we do for the Friends of the Art Gallery, numbers. Alan managed to collect some, where we hold the same positions, and but there are still a lot of gaps. Please send continue to pass cheques to each other them to me at [email protected] or over the dining room table! telephone 01934 833619. I’d be glad to hear I have organised membership records for from you – on any subject. other local societies in the past, and always Anne Merriman 3 Dorothy Brown OBE 1927 - 2013 The large congregation at her Commemoration Service represented many of the campaigns It is with sadness that we have to report and groups Dorothy had founded and the death of Dorothy Brown, one of the first supported: Bristol Civic Society, Bristol Visual members of the Avon Gardens Trust. & Environmental Group & Trust, CHIS, Avon Dorothy was born into farming heritage Gardens Trust, Winterbourne Mediaeval Barn in the Scottish Borders. After graduating Trust, Frome Building Preservation Trust from Edinburgh University, she moved, and Acton Court. together with her husband Tom, to Bristol Dorothy’s commitment and hard work in the early 1950s. are an example to others; her description Bristol and especially Clifton, its history in a past copy of The Civic Trust News as and buildings, became very important to “...one of the Boadiceas of the Conservation Dorothy; she was one of the early members Movement” was well deserved. Her children, of the Clifton & Hotwells Improvement grand children and Bristolians feel much Society (CHIS). sadness that she is no longer here to support our causes. One of Dorothy’s first successful campaigns Anita Sims was to oppose a scheme to build a large hotel on the slopes of the Avon Gorge which 1936 - 2013 would have destroyed the character of the Sheila Dart SSSI and the setting of Brunel’s Grade I Clifton Suspension Bridge. Following this, We regret to report the death of Sheila Dart in 1971, Dorothy founded the Bristol Visual on 27 September this year. & Environmental Group and Trust. Sheila and Peter were founder members, Causes promoted by the BV&E Group led beginning with the launch in Goldney, and to the re-invigoration of old buildings in remained loyal supporters of the Trust. They areas including Old Market, St. Michaels will be known to many of our members as Hill and Frome as well as the Clifton Lido. they attended visits, book launches and Dorothy’s work and advice with these lectures. This often meant overcoming and other projects was much appreciated difficulties in recent years when Sheila by conservation groups. Arguably her needed a wheel chair. Sheila had suffered greatest achievement was her discovery from a heart condition during her school and rescue of Acton Court in Iron Acton and university days in Bristol, but developed which her Preservation Trust bought in a determined and hopeful attitude to life 1984, thus saving one of the most important and its difficulties.

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