Plans to restore the historic kitchen garden at the Lake District National Park’s Visitor Centre, Brockhole, have recently been unveiled and volunteers are being encouraged to sign up to help along the way.
This important heritage project, which got underway this week, will take around two years to complete. It’s been made possible thanks to a National Lottery grant of £75,000, which will enable the restoration of part of the Thomas Mawson designed kitchen garden at Brockhole on Windermere.
The kitchen garden hasn’t been used to its full potential in recent years and this exciting initiative will help reinstate it to its former glory and in doing so will form an important research project to benefit schools, community groups and visitors to the area.
Volunteers of all ages and abilities are being urged to get involved as there really is something useful that most people can be doing over the coming months. There is some physical work that needs to be done to prepare the gardens and harvest the produce at a later date, but there’s also the less physical task of researching the garden and its historic relevance, which can be done at a more leisurely pace.
As part of the project the summerhouse will be refurbished and a range of workshops will be held there to introduce people to all sorts of gardening-related activities. The summerhouse will also display volunteers’ research findings to really bring the history of the garden to life.
School and community group sessions will run across key stages of the garden project to learn about various gardening and conservation techniques and from ground to plate gardening and cooking experiences.
Sam Mason, General Manager at Brockhole on Windermere said: “We are thrilled to launch this project which is set to completely transform part of the kitchen garden at Brockhole.
“Our thanks go to National Lottery players and the Heritage Lottery Fund for the grant to enable us to get the initiative up and running. We are confident the project will restore a valuable heritage asset and will create a new learning resource for the local community and visitors to the area. It will also be interesting to uncover the story and vision of Thomas Mawson, who designed the gardens, and his inspiring 'rags to riches' tale.”
For more information on how to get involved please email: volunteers@lakedistrict.gov.uk
Our photo shows: Brockhole House with kitchen garden in the foreground.
