The weekend of 22/23 April 2023 was a very exciting one for “Our Pavilion”. On the Saturday a team of 4 volunteers worked continuously through both good and appalling weather to start to create our Coronation Garden to the side of our building.
They built raised beds to include seating and planted out with perennials in red white and blue. Alongside 3 fruit trees and some shrubs were planted and the ground cleared of weeds and covered with bark chippings. A total of 53 metres of wood, 40 bags of compost and 6 bags of bark chippings were used in the process.
On the following day at 9.30am Lucy Hall and Rachel Winfield set out from our premises to run a “virtual” London marathon to raise money for this project. They ran from Forde Park out to Kingskerswell, back to Brunel industrial estate, across the suspension bridge to Kingsteignton, along the cycle path to Bovey and then back to Forde park via Liverton and Stover …a grand total of 26.2 miles. A good crowd were out at 3 pm to welcome them home and congratulate them. They cut the ribbon and our Coronation Garden is now officially open.
We plan to use this garden as an area of tranquillity where the workers we are supporting can take time out as necessary when the business of the café can be quite overwhelming. It will also be available to our wider community as a shaded area to relax in after hours. As time goes by we wish to increase the numbers of beds and benches and start growing produce to use in the café itself.
A huge thank you to Rachel and Lucy for raising funds for us to kick this project off and to Tony Johnson for his ideas and practical help for the garden. This current campaign will remain live on our “justgiving” page for a couple of weeks more if others wish to contribute and in addition we have applied to the town council for a grant to help us with the further expansion of this area.