July 2021
We were very sorry to have to cancel our Anniversary Fete in late June at short notice, to comply with the latest government guidelines on social gatherings. Notices were posted on social media and our website but may not have reached everyone. We apologise for the disappointment and any inconvenience caused.
To make up for the cancelled events, we aim to make the Horticultural Show in September a bigger event than usual. We hope more people will enter this year. If you grow your own fruit and vegetables, arrange flowers, bake, make preserves, sew, knit, stitch, paint, sketch or take photos, then there is something for you to enter. Schedules are available from the Challis Garden or can be viewed on our website. We would love to see more entries from children and encourage them to enter. There are several activities to choose from, in two age groups – seven years and under and eight to twelve years old. Entry slips to be returned by Thursday 2nd September, please.
The Twelfth Night production on 20th June was a great success, a highly entertaining performance by very professional actors. We are delighted that Half Cut Theatre are returning on Sunday 15th August with Treasure Island. There will again be two performances, at 2pm and 5pm. Book online at www.halfcuttheatre.co.uk or call 07892 854658 to avoid disappointment. No pre-payment is needed, and you ‘Pay What You Decide’ after the performance. Gates open one hour before each performance to let you relax and enjoy a picnic or snacks beforehand. Please bring your own seats and blankets, if possible.
We are delighted that a start has been made on building the new Garden Museum. Footings have been dug and concrete foundations put in. Availability of building materials is an issue in the industry at present, but hopefully construction can progress smoothly during the summer months. The garden will open as usual, but for the foreseeable future, the main entrance to the garden is closed, so please use the side gate on the left-hand side of the car park.
Despite a very dry June, the earlier wet weather and rain in the first half of July has encouraged very vigorous growth. Many of the plants in the herbaceous borders are much larger than usual, with wonderful displays of flowers. The wildflower meadow in the centre of the main lawn is especially good this year, dominated now by scabious and knapweed giving mauve and purple hues. There seem to be fewer butterflies around this year – probably due to the cold, wet weather in late spring affecting the first generations – but lots of bees, bumblebees, hoverflies and ladybirds. Visitors have enjoyed these displays. Come and see for yourself!
Local artist Fran Godwood has produced a new garden design for our notelets and tea towels to augment our range of Challis gifts. Also available: honey from our hives, fresh garden produce, jams and preserves, house plants, garden plants and old bottles. Do have a look.
Two tiny ‘hoglets’ were seen by several people in the garden in early July, just 10cm long. Cute!
The archive remains closed to visitors, but work on cataloguing has continued and we hope to find some means of making an online catalogue available to the public. One of the features of the archive is that it holds complete sets of Sawston Scene and the Sawston Crier and a good selection of press cuttings about Sawston from the local newspapers since the 1980s. Anyone who would like to look at any items is welcome to make an appointment to do so. We also collect orders of service from the funerals of Sawston inhabitants to provide a permanent record of their lives in Sawston, and will be pleased to receive any of these, which can be posted in our post box.
We were recently very pleased to receive a generous donation from a member of the Challis family which includes books owned by Mary Challis and many other family artefacts and photographs, which we hope to display soon.
A recently catalogued file concerns the way the Festival of Britain was marked in Sawston, seventy years ago. There was a special week in July 1951, which included a concert, a tennis tournament, an exhibition and the Horticultural Show. There were also visits to factories at Thomas Evans, James Garnar. Eastern Counties Leather, Edward Towgood, the House of Spicer and Crampton’s. None of these enterprises now exists, illustrating how Sawston has changed in the interim. There is an archive photograph showing the opening of the Festival Week at the Village College.
Mike Redshaw & Mary Dicken
Published in the August–September 20221 Sawston Scene
Treasure Island’ with Half Cut Theatre: Sunday 15th August at 2pm and 5pm
Gates open one hour before each performance. Advance bookings only.
Book at Eventrbrite for the 2pm performance
Book at Eventrbrite for the 5pm performance
Read MoreMuch Ado About Nothing: Saturday 9th and Sunday 10th July
After three rip-roaring visits to Sawston in 2021 with Twelfth Night, Treasure Island and A Christmas Carol, Half Cut Theatre are back! Join them for an anarchic take on one of Shakespeare’s best-loved romantic comedies, Much Ado About Nothing.
Due to popular demand, you have three opportunities to catch them:
- 6pm on Saturday 9th July 2022
- 2pm on Sunday 10th July 2022
- 6pm on Sunday 10th July 2022
Tickets are, as always, Pay What You Decide but space is extremely limited so book soon! We anticipate selling out very quickly but Half Cut will be operating a waiting list when capacity is reached.
– or check out www.halfcuttheatre.co.uk/book for details of other performances in their Summer Season.
- Gates open one hour beforehand. Picnics welcome.
- Please bring your own chairs if possible.
May 2021
A busy month coming up in the garden with three events on successive Sundays in June. Please note that the normal opening times will not apply on these days. First up is the Open Garden event on Sunday 13th June in support of the wonderful National Garden Scheme (NGS), which has raised money for nursing and healthcare charities since 1927. The total to date has exceeded £60 million, with around £3 million donated annually in recent years – a fantastic achievement. Due to the pandemic, most private gardens could not open last year so we are very pleased to be able to continue our commitment to the scheme again in 2021. The garden will be open from 1pm to 5 pm. Admission is £3 per adult (free for children). Plants will be on sale on the day, with a proportion of the takings going to the NGS.
On Sunday 20th June, we are delighted to be hosting our first open-air theatre performance. This features Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night by the Half Cut Theatre Company. This is a new theatre group, based in London, set up last year in response to the closure of theatres due to the Covid crisis. One of the founding members is a Duxford lad, James Camp, who attended SVC – hence the interest in bringing the play to Sawston. They will give two performances at 2pm and 5pm. Please book online at www.halfcuttheatre.co.uk or call 07892 854658. There is no pre-payment required but a ‘Pay What You Decide’ contribution after the performance.
Gates will open one hour before each performance so there is time to relax and have a picnic or snacks before the play starts, and you can visit our Pimm’s tent for a selection of refreshing drinks. It promises to be an entertaining afternoon. If possible, please bring your own seats and blankets as there are a limited number available on site. There is a lot of interest in this event, so do book your place early!
The company is returning in August to perform Treasure Island – more details about this in the next issue.
Our postponed Anniversary Fete will be held on Sunday 27th June from 2pm to 4.30pm. It is hoped all our usual groups and attractions can attend to entertain and educate us. This year we propose to have a Kid’s Zone hosting a range of activities, which we hope makes up partly for the cancelled children’s events over the past year. Look out for posters in the village and on our Facebook page. As usual, M C Teas will serve tea and cakes from the house.
Passers-by will have noticed scaffolding at the front of the house at 68 High Street in recent weeks. This is for essential maintenance work on guttering, fascias and soffits, re-pointing brickwork and re-coating the external walls. The opportunity will also be taken to install a swift nestbox at the front. Apparently, swifts used to nest at the front but nesting sites were blocked off during renovation work. Two tubular nestboxes were fitted to the south-facing wall as replacements but they do not appear to have been used regularly. In recent years, the swifts have been nesting at the rear of the properties. It will be interesting to see how soon the new boxes are occupied. Swifts return here in mid-May and quickly start to seek out nest sites. Hopefully the new boxes will be in place in good time. Like most wildlife nowadays, swifts need as much help as we can give them. Let’s wait and see!
Despite inclement weather – cold spells, a very dry April and late frosts – the garden volunteers have been busy preparing the herbaceous beds for the summer, tidying up the winter/spring border, raising bedding plants, trimming and mowing. If the weather – finally – comes good in the coming weeks, we can look forward to lots of colourful displays through to autumn. Look out for the stunning displays on false acacia and golden rain trees from late June to early July.
We have re-organised the plant nursery area and gift stand, putting material for sale on stands, with clear labelling and pricing. This is a much-needed improvement. We hope you like it.
Are you aware there is a unique apple variety in our garden? The large tree at the main entrance has been identified as a cross between Dr Harvey (one of the earliest English culinary apple varieties) and Cox’s Orange Pippin. This cross is not on the national register of English apples and hence has been accepted as a new variety ‘Mary Challis’ and listed in the Register of Local Cultivars. We have raised new trees by grafting, which are now available as two-year old semi-standard trees. If you are interested in planting a Mary Challis apple, please talk to one of the garden team. It produces medium-large apples, with good cooking and eating properties that store well through to Christmas time.
Mike Redshaw
Printed in the June–July 2021 issue of Sawston Scene
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