Having moved out of our base of 38 years earlier this autumn, we are currently operating from interim temporary structures whilst we work on the next phase of our future visitor facilities. The new entrance to the Garden is located on the opposite side of the car park to where you usually walk down to the Café/Welcome desk. If you’ve not visited us before, as you turn right off the drive and into the car park, look ahead and you’ll see the new entrance at the far end.
We’ve made lots of good progress and when we reopen on the 21 January you’ll see our new Welcome Desk and Shop is no longer a shed and we also have a new Cafe area with a heated tipi! We’ll update this post as soon as we have some more pictures.
As you walk through our new gates you’ll see on the right we’ve been joined by Exedra Nursery. You’ll struggle to walk past without being tempted in by their fabulous range of herbaceous perennials, most of which are grown onsite in peat-free compost. To complement the perennials, they also have exceptional plants from other carefully selected UK nurseries and a range of high quality gardening tools and accessories. Steve and Julie are passionate about plants and are keen gardeners themselves – they are always happy to help with any horticultural queries you might have.
Carry on past Exedra Nursery and you’ll come to our Welcome ‘shed’, this is where you now purchase Garden admission tickets. It is also well stocked with lots of our favourite shop goodies, including jams and chutneys made using produce from the Garden – make sure you have a look on your way in or out.
The Café ‘shed’ is serving a simplified offering of hot and cold refreshments, snacks and cakes – these can be enjoyed either in the Garden or under our temporary marquee. If you are wanting to have lunch with us, we are currently serving soup, sandwiches and delicious homemade pies from local, award-winning supplier Plenty Pies. We’re very pleased that our Fracino coffee machine made the move with us, so we can continue to serve you with top-notch coffees.
The Garden is now accessed via a wooden ramp beside the Bothy – the beautiful panoramic vista that greets you as you come in is simply stunning.
It is important to stress that what we currently have in place is not the finished article! We have great plans for this space but we need a little more time before we can fulfil these plans. When you visit you will see us hard at work over the coming months, completing the project. However, we are dedicated to keeping the Garden open to the public, so we hope you will forgive our slightly makeshift appearance that will greet you in the short-term. Maintaining and conserving this gorgeous Garden is our charity’s core purpose and our expert Garden team will be keeping up the good work throughout this time.
Toilet facilities – we currently have a temporary toilet trailer in place (it has flushing toilets and running water) and a separate accessible/baby change portable ‘basic’ unit.