How it all began...
The story
begins back in 1999 when members of the Wolverton Society for Arts &
Heritage talked about a discarded, overgrown, piece of land they walked through
and whether it would be possible to acquire it and turn it into a garden that
everybody could enjoy, in a town where there are few green spaces. The
name came from one of the group member’s favourite childhood books, The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson
Burnett where children go through a hidden door and discover an overgrown
garden that’s mystical and magical. We hope that as this garden matures
it will become more and more magical for children from 3 to 103.
The site was formerly
occupied by 4 villas (semi-detached houses), built by the London &
Birmingham Railway Company in the 1840s to house some of the important members
of the management of the Railway Works. The houses were occupied until the late
1960s when they were demolished and the area became neglected. A sub-committee, which eventually evolved
into the
The next significant event was when one of our members bumped into an employee of Railtrack at a family gathering which enabled us to start negotiations with them, and to cut a long story short, Railtrack, now Network Rail, agreed to sell the land to the Wolverton & Greenleys Town Council for £1, provided that it should remain a garden in perpetuity.
So we’ve
got the land, but what sort of garden would people like? With the help of
funding from the Countryside Agency Doorstep Greens scheme we employed
landscape architect Neil Higson, then of Landscape Town & Country, who drew
up three different schemes. Group members then took these plans out to public
consultation. We took them to existing community events - a '
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The design that the vast majority of people liked best was the less formal one, with a path that wound through the site, a formal 'Villa Garden' on the site of the former Stationmaster's and Works Accountant's Villas and a less formal area where wildife could be encouraged and where there might be more 'mystery' and surprises. The plan also included a footbridge link
from the canal towpath on the only other side of the canal. This
was an extremely popular feature and one which we are still seeking
funding to put in place. |
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