The Great Get Together on Sunday 18th June 2017
Bring a picnic and join your neighbours on Sunday 18th June, any time from noon to 5pm in the Challis Garden. Bring a group, meet up with friends and family, share a meal – bring rugs and picnics (sorry, no barbecues) Contact Mike Redshaw: mikeredshaw@tiscali.co.uk or 834511
This is a nationwide event in memory of Jo Cox: “We have far more in common than that which divides us.”
See the Great Get Together website for more information about what’s behind the event.
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May 2017
Our third exhibition, ‘Back to School’, will open on Thursday 1st June at 10am in the Mary Challis House. It’s still not too late to contribute educational material or objects to display in the exhibition – please contact Rosie Phillips on 560816 if you have anything we can use. We would welcome a few more volunteers to act as stewards for the exhibition, for two-hour sessions during normal garden opening times. Again, if you can help, please contact Rosie Phillips.
Do come along to see the exhibits and have a look also at the great progress in refurbishing the house. The Edwardian bathroom on the first floor has been reinstated to what it would have looked like in Mary’s time. We are sourcing suitable period items to furnish this room. If you have anything appropriate for that period, and are willing to loan it, please get in touch.
Keen observers may have spotted the new house sign at the front of number 68 affirming this is indeed the Mary Challis House. The house used to be known as ‘The Laburnums’ – the name was etched on the window pane above the front door, but it is no longer legible. It is planned to reinstate this as part of the original fabric of the house.
Following our three events in April and May, we will be holding two more events in June. Busy times! First up is our annual garden opening for the National Gardens Scheme on Sunday 11th June from 2pm to 6pm. Please note this event was advertised as opening from 1pm to 5pm in the February–March issue. Our apologies for this error. Teas and homemade cakes will be available from the house; plants for sale in the garden.
On Sunday 18th June, our usual opening hours will be extended from 12 noon to 5pm for the Great Get Together event. This is part of a national event to honour Jo Cox, the MP killed in her constituency of Batley and Spen last year. The aim is to encourage communities to meet in a spirit of friendship and compassion, and share a meal together. In Jo Cox’s words “There is more that unites than divides us.” See greatgettogether.org for more information. If you want to support this event, you are welcome to use the garden as a venue to meet with friends, family or neighbours. Bring a picnic (sorry, no barbecues) and join us in the garden. Do let us know if you intend to bring a group, so we can ensure enough tables and chairs are set up. Or we can advise you whether to bring a picnic rug or your own chairs.
Our garden team has been very busy preparing the herbaceous beds and vegetable plots for the summer season. This year we are again raising a range of annual bedding plants from seed to supplement the perennials in the main beds, including cosmos, begonias, dahlias and zinnias. The herbaceous beds, bee border and wildflower meadow are at their best in the coming months, and some of the specimen trees will be in flower.
We are very pleased to have several new volunteers this year in the garden. The garden would not look as good as it does without this help. If you can spare a few hours on Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday mornings, we would be delighted to see you. The more the merrier!
Finishing touches have been applied to the refurbished pigsties. They not only look good, but provide much-needed storage space for garden equipment and furniture. A huge thank you to everyone involved in this project.
It is very sad to report that one of our long-term trustees, Sheila Blackwell, died in April. Sheila served as a trustee for eight years, including three years as treasurer. Her important contribution has helped to ensure the success of the Mary Challis Trust and kept our finances in order. We greatly miss her enthusiasm and friendship. The trustees offer sincere condolences to Sheila’s family. Mike Redshaw
Published in Sawston Scene, June–July 2018 issue.
Read MoreNational Gardens Scheme 2021 Opening: Sunday 13th June
Open Garden as part of the National Garden Scheme. Homemade cakes and teas. Plant sale. Admission fee for adults; children free.
Find out more about the NGS and who the profits go to.
Read MoreThe Great Get Together 2018 picnic: Sunday 17th June 12 noon to 4pm
In memory of Jo Cox MP.
Bring a picnic and join your neighbours, any time from noon to 4pm in the Challis Garden. Bring a group, meet up with friends and family, share a meal – bring rugs and picnics (sorry, no barbecues).
This is a nationwide event in memory of Jo Cox: “We have far more in common than that which divides us.”
See the Great Get Together website for more information about what’s behind the event.
Read More
March 2017
We are looking forward to holding three garden events in the coming period. First up is the Children’s Easter Activity Morning on Saturday 15th April, 10am to 12 noon, with many child-focused activities – Easter Egg hunt, face-painting, biscuit decoration, garden games – plus the ever-popular soup, teas and cakes from the house. Children please remember to bring an adult along!
Greener Sawston are holding a 24-hour Bioblitz event in the garden over the weekend of 13th and 14th May, following the taster event held last October. These events aim to encourage communities to find and record the many different birds, bugs, animals and plants living in their green spaces. Check out the Bioblitz website for more information or see the April-May 2017 Sawston Scene. Do book early to reserve a place for the Saturday evening and Sunday morning sessions.
Our Anniversary Fete is on Sunday 21st May from 2pm. This event commemorates the official opening of the garden on 17th May 2009 by Christopher South of Cambridge News. Come along and enjoy a relaxing afternoon in the garden, entertained by Sawston Steel Band and replenished with teas and home-made cakes served by our excellent MC Teas team.
Work is continuing apace in the house to get the first floor rooms finished to provide extra floor space for our third exhibition, ‘Back to School’. Dates for the exhibition will be publicised when the house is ready. This has taken a long time, but there have been a lot of obstacles, including some unforeseen ones, to overcome. Visitors will also be able to see the restored Edwardian bathroom on the first floor. The Trust office will be up on the top floor of the house – can’t wait! Our thanks as ever to our resourceful builders Ray and Graham and to Tony Fell for the decorating.
We would still appreciate any relevant educational material or artefacts that could be used in the exhibition. If you can contribute anything, please contact us.
At the timing of writing, there are wonderful displays of snowdrops, aconites and crocuses in the garden. Snowdrops seem to be particularly good this year. The earliest daffodils were in flower in late February and should show well into April.
Our honeybees have been very active during mild periods in February and March, which is a good boost for them this early in the season. Looking around, it is striking how much blossom is present on the early-flowering shrubs for the bees to gather nectar and pollen. They clearly enjoy the floral perfumes as much as we do! Our two colonies appear to have come through the winter intact, and should do well this year, provided there are no prolonged cold snaps.
A few more sycamores on the north side of the garden will be removed this spring. We have sourced suitable small trees and low-growing shrubs to replace these, including Euonymus, Cornus, Mahonia, Arbutus, Acer, Malus, Nandina and Amelanchier specimens. These are chosen to give a mixture of deciduous and evergreen plants, with particular attention to early flowering andgood autumn colour. It will be very interesting to watch the development of this section of the garden.
Please note that SUNDAY opening times will revert to the usual ‘summer’ hours of 2pm to 4 pm from 26th March.
Finally, it is very sad to mark the passing of Bryan Howe, who died suddenly on 6th February. Bryan was a trustee for several years and volunteered in the house for the earlier exhibitions. His sound knowledge of local history, and the Challis family in particular, was widely recognised in Sawston. The trust is especially grateful to Bryan for rescuing important documents from 68 High Street, after Mary died, that would otherwise have been thrown out. The trustees offer their sincere condolences to Bryan’s family. Mike Redshaw
Published in Sawston Scene, April–May 2018 issue.
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