Horticultural Show: Saturday 1st September 2018 2pm to 4.30pm
September is show time, with our annual Horticultural Show alongside other attractions such as a beekeeping stand, Pimm’s tent, giant games, tombola, morsbags, plant sales and, of course, tea and cakes.
We are keen to get more entries from other villages, and especially from children (seven years old and under, and eight to twelve). If you grow produce, bake, make jam, arrange flowers, make handicrafts or take photos, then there is a class for you. Do have a go and enter something. Entries are judged in the morning, then open to view in the afternoon.
Download an entry form, or pick one up from the Challis Garden summerhouse or Challis House at 68 High Street. Please return to 68 High Street (Mary Challis House) by Thursday 30 August and include age of child in children’s classes.
Classes are:
VEGETABLES AND FRUIT
All entries must have been grown by the exhibitor
-
- 5 white potatoes
- 5 coloured potatoes
- 5 onions with necks tied and 2 cms of root attached
- 8 shallots with necks tied and 2 cms of root attached
- 5 beetroots with necks cut at about 5 cms and roots attached
- 5 runner beans
- 5 French beans
- 5 carrots with foliage trimmed
- an exhibit of any other vegetable
- 5 tomatoes with short stems
- a truss of miniature tomatoes of any variety
- 1 cucumber
- 1 head of lettuce
- 5 cooking apples
- 5 dessert apples
- a dish of stone fruit
- a dish of soft fruit
- an exhibit of any other fruit
- a vegetable marrow for weight
- the longest runner bean
- a presentation of herbs
FLOWERS
- a miniature arrangement of flowers no taller or wider than 6 inches
- a vase of annual flowers
- 5 stems of perennial flowers
- a single rose bloom
- a single bloom of any flower other than a rose
- a green arrangement
- a buttonhole or corsage for a wedding
- a flowering pot plant
- a foliage pot plant
DOMESTIC CLASSES
- 1 jar of jam made with soft fruit
- 1 jar of jam made with stone fruit
- 1 jar of marmalade
- 1 jar of chutney or relish
- 1 fruit cake – any recipe
- 1 decorated celebration sponge cake – any recipe
- 6 fruit scones
- 6 chocolate brownies
- a loaf of bread of any recipe or shape
- a 1 lb jar of clear honey
- 3 eggs, any colour
HANDICRAFTS
All entries must have been made within the last twelve months
- a hand-knitted article
- a crocheted article
- an article of decorative needlework
- a sewn garment
- a picture in any medium (but not a photo)
- a photo on any subject, up to 9 inches by 6 inches, not framed or mounted
- an article made of wood
CHILDREN’S CLASSES
(IN TWO GROUPS: 7 YEARS AND UNDER
8 TO 12 YEARS)
- a miniature garden on a plate
- an animal made from fruit, vegetables, pins and matchsticks
- an arrangement of flowers
- 6 decorated biscuits
- a piece of craftwork.
It is planned to hold an auction of exhibits at the end of the Show to raise money for the Challis Trust. Please remember to make it clear if you don’t want your entry to be auctioned.
Read MoreJanuary 2017
Looking back at 2016, we are very pleased with what was accomplished last year. In addition to our regular opening hours on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, we held six public events – Easter Saturday, Anniversary Fete, NGS Open Gardens, Horticultural Show, a Bioblitz and Spooky Saturday – and hosted fourteen garden bookings (various groups, clubs, schools, Brownies and Beavers). Many thanks, as always, to everyone who attended these events and to our hard-working volunteers for tending the garden, serving teas, and so on. Also to those who stopped by at the house at the Winter Fair event to share some Christmas spirit – it was a great evening!
Renovation work and decorating continue in the house, the main focus being the first floor, to give us much-needed space for displays, storage and an office. We were disappointed not to be able to hold an exhibition in 2016, but happy that this will now go ahead with our third exhibition ‘Back to School’ in late spring (more about this in our previous update). If you have any relevant educational material or artefacts that could be used in the exhibition, then we’d be delighted to hear from you.
There are signs of an early spring in the garden. The first snowdrops and aconites are already in flower, and should put on a good display into February. Crocuses, daffodils and tulips will follow in March and April. Do drop by to have a look at these displays, ideally on a sunny morning.
In the Spring/Winter walk, there is intense perfume from the wintering-flowering shrubs – Christmas box (Sarcococca confusa), shrub honeysuckle (Lonicera fragrantissima), Mahonia spp. and Viburnum farreri fragrans. Delicious! The various dogwoods (Cornus spp.) are at their most colourful in spring, ranging from bright yellows, orange, and light green to deep reds – the pick of these being ‘Winter Beauty’.
We intend to remove more sycamores from this part of the garden. This will allow us to plant up this woodland area with suitable ground cover, shrubs, evergreens and small ornamental trees. Elsewhere in the wilder parts of the garden, the onus is on encouraging native flora, which support a host of insects and other fauna. Good numbers of birds are regularly seen in the garden, including a pair of treecreepers, which we hope may nest this year.
The results of the DNA-fingerprinting to identify our apple varieties are now in ! Our apple collection consists of Ashmeads Kernel, Orleans Reinette, Peasgood Nonsuch – I’m not making this up ! – Bramley, Cox’s Orange Pippin, Worcester Pearmain, Discovery, Fiesta and Chivers Delight. The only surprise is what we thought was a Dr Harvey (the large tree near the main entrance to the garden) did not match the national database, so may well just be a seedling tree. We have checked the fruit from this tree against the Dr Harvey apple at Audley End and it looks very similar, so it remains a mystery. Does anyone know anything about the Challis Garden tree?
Please note that Sunday opening times are still on the winter schedule, 1pm to 3 pm, until the clocks change to BST on 26th March.
Finally, we are very sorry to say goodbye to Sheila Blackwell, who served the Mary Challis Trust for many years, as trustee and as treasurer. She resigned at the end of 2016 due to ill health. The trustees express their sincere thanks to Sheila for her long service and dedication, and wish her well. She will be greatly missed.
Mike Redshaw
Read MoreSawston Winter Fair: 5pm to 7pm, Friday 11th December (to be confirmed)
with craft stalls, card stall, home-made produce, tombola, mulled wine and mince pies
Read MoreNovember 2016
Our last event for 2016 – ‘Spooky Saturday’ – was very well attended. Thanks, as usual, to all who came and to our veritable army of volunteers. Great to see so many families in the garden, enjoying the mild late October weather and the many activities on offer: face-painting, a scavenger hunt, pumpkin carving, apple bobbing and biscuit decorating. Mary Challis would have been delighted to see so many people enjoying the 
garden – this is precisely what she wanted to provide for the village.
We offer our thanks to Greener Sawston for arranging the Bioblitz event in October. This was a taster session to demonstrate the type of methods used for assessing biodiversity – pond-dipping, bat detection, moth-traps and spotting birds. We soon learnt that trapping and catching wildlife is the easy part, but identification can be very challenging! Highlights were the impressive great diving beetles in the pond and a treecreeper, incredibly well camouflaged on the sycamore trunks. It is planned to do a more extensive survey in the spring. We hope more people come along to assist and to discover what lurks in the garden!
The main herbaceous beds were surprisingly colourful into early November – a testament to the careful choice of plants and good husbandry, but also due to the mild weather up to the end of October. Winter work is well underway, the main focus on collecting leaves, cutting back, dividing perennials and mulching bare soil. We give special attention to removing and composting the horse chestnut leaves to help reduce the infestation of the leaf-miner pest that has blighted these trees in recent years. This policy appears to be working; the trees have looked much healthier this year.
Work on refurbishing the derelict garden buildings is nearing completion. We are extremely pleased with the quality of the work. Our thanks to our builders Ray and Graham. Apart from smartening up this part of the garden, the buildings look great and will provide much-needed storage space and a dedicated potting shed. Happy potting, Judy! There are no more formal events this year, but the Mary Challis house will be open for the Winter Fair on Friday 16th December between 5pm and 7pm. Our garden produce – jams, chutneys, honey, apples – will be available. Do drop in to say hello and share a glass or two. We look forward to seeing many of you there. Please note that Sunday opening times are now on the winter schedule: 1pm to 3 pm. Mike Redshaw
Challis Trust Chair Rosie Philips adds: The Winter Fair will see the Challis House dressed for Christmas with many different craftspeople displaying their handmade goods for sale for various charities. We’re hosting Mary Wilson’s famous Sawston pickles, chutneys and conserves as well as our own Challis Garden honey, jams and relishes. Festive music plus mince pies and mulled wine available for a donation to the Challis Trust to enable ongoing restoration work in the house and on the garden buildings.
In the wake of recent extensive building work, the Challis Museum will be presenting its third exhibition, ‘Back to School’, in late Spring 2017. We’re seeking any photos, artefacts, books, equipment or other material suitable for display to do with the widest meaning of Education in Sawston including nursery, primary, secondary, adult, church and chapel, music and sports, outside school and so on. School reports (however bad) would be particularly welcome and can be displayed anonymously on request!
The Challis Trust is looking for a new Trustee – someone with Sawston connections who would be interested in helping to further develop the Mary Challis Museum and Garden, two outstanding assets left to the people of Sawston and the surrounding area some ten years ago by the late Mary Challis.
Helping to organise events, fundraising for the charity and a keen interest in the further development of the house and garden are important aspects of this role. Trustees meet once a month and now that the structure of the house is sound, the ground floor houses a large display area which has already hosted two well-attended exhibitions. This area also acts as a meeting room and is the centre of catering for the several increasingly popular public events we hold each year. Work is now well-advanced on the refurbishment of the first floor which when completed, will provide even more exhibition, library and public meeting space. If you are interested and would like an application form please contact our Chair, Rosie Phillips, at chair@challistrust.org.uk or 01223 560816, or leave a note with your contact details in the letterbox on the wall outside the Challis House at 68 High Street.
This update was printed in the December 2016–January 2017 issue of Sawston Scene.
Read MoreSeptember 2016
The Horticultural Show on 3rd September was very successful, with a turnout of more than two hundred visitors, despite some rain and a real deluge at the end. The live jazz and Pimm’s clearly helped! Our thanks to Sawston Scouts for putting up the large marquee and to SYD for loan of trestles for the displays, and of course to our faithful band of volunteers.
Entries for the show were down a bit on last year, with very few entries in some classes and none at all in the children’s section. It would be good to have more exhibits next year. The show is not exclusively for Sawston residents, so we welcome entries from our neighbouring villages as well. We will endeavour to spread the word widely in 2017. Hallowe’en will soon be upon us, and we will be celebrating this in the garden, 
as usual, on Saturday 29th October from 10am to noon. Lots of activities for the children. Soup, scones and teas for the adults! Entrance free. We look forward to seeing many of you there.
As summer draws to an end, the garden team are busy preparing for autumn and winter. Lots of mulching, clearing, pruning, dead-heading and leaf-raking to be done. We could still use a little more help in the garden, so if you are interested in volunteering, do please contact us. The main herbaceous beds at the rear of the house continue to look good, with plenty of colour and secondary flushes. We expect good displays well into October.
Apples will be available from the garden through October, and perhaps some late veggies, as well as the usual stock of honey, jams and chutneys. Do drop in to check what’s on offer. Greener Sawston will be doing a ‘Bioblitz’ of the garden on Saturday 1st October from 6pm to 10pm and Sunday 2nd October 8am to 10am, to assess the diversity of our fauna and flora. This first event will concentrate on the fauna – mammals, birds, amphibians and insects. It is hoped to do a broader 24-hour survey in 2017, to include plants as well as animals. It will be fascinating to see what shows up – do come along and help search! This a public event open to all – calm accompanied children welcome. (Find Greener Sawston on Facebook.)
The Trust arranged a very successful day’s outing for volunteers in August, as a thank you for the time they put into the garden, house and events. We hope to make this an annual event. Transport was provided by Tim Phillips in the shape of his classic coach ‘Lady Sarah’, complete with kitchen and galley – a trip down memory lane for all of us. (See more photos of this lovely coach, which you can hire.) First stop was Docwra’s Manor Garden in Shepreth. This is well worth a visit if you haven’t been: check www.docwrasmanorgarden.co.uk for details. We then went on to RSPB Fowlmere for a picnic lunch and a walk around the reserve. A very hot but enjoyable day! Mike Redshaw
This update was printed in the October–November 2016 issue of Sawston Scene.
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