We had a wonderful response to our Open Garden Event on 1st July. A huge thank you to all members who came along on a hot summers day to support. We raised £1500 on the day and with donations made following our wider appeal and publicity we met our target of £4,000 and the work to digitally copy Gertrude Jekyll’s drawings and papers held at UCL, Berkeley, California is well underway due to be completed by 31 December 2018.
We are hugely grateful to the support of Surrey Bees, Toast, Marina Christopher of Phoenix Perennial Plants, Taurus Wines, and local sculptor David Paynter, all of whom joined us on the day. We also had wonderful raffle prizes donated by Squires Garden Centre, Loseley House, West Dean College, the Grange Festival, Hampshire and Grange Park Opera, West Horsley, Ros Wallinger of Upton Grey, Riverford Organic Farmers, the Hannah Peschar Sculpture Garden and Cherfold Cottage Flowers of Chiddingfold as well as many private donations.
There are further examples of Jekyll’s drawings, papers and photographs relating to Surrey gardens archived in the UK and we would like as a Trust to complete this project by cataloguing these to create a record of everything that we are aware exists and as far as is possible, ensuring that they have been digitally copied and made available to view for research purposes going forward.
More information will follow.