A lot can happen in nine years. Just look at the Winterstoke Gardens.
This unique and valued beautifully laid out park and gardens were lovingly tended and managed by a paid team of gardeners – from their opening in 1923 until 1974 when The Winterstoke Gardens (along with all open spaces) were taken into the authority of Thanet District Council, following the Local Government Act.
From 1974 until 7 years ago the Winterstoke Gardens, Sun Shelter and Chine fell into ever greater neglect and gained a reputation for crime, drugs and as a place to be climbed over – none of which was the intention when they were so beautifully created and planted in 1923.
Now, these remarkable, beautifully designed gardens have been transformed from the neglected, overgrown, and threatening wreck that they had become over the previous thirty to forty years.
Our volunteer group is the largest volunteer gardening group in Ramsgate. We have been tending the Winterstoke Gardens weekly for nearly nine years, and the gardens are at last a place to visit on the tourist trail, with people returning to Ramsgate each year especially to see what we have achieved.
In the last two years, we have won three prizes from the South East in Bloom competitions. Each year we have won the Silver Gilt award (that’s better than Silver). In 2021, the judge put us in the Heritage Parks and Gardens category, and we came second behind two National Trust gardens with all their money, funding, greenhouses and paid gardeners. We did amazingly with simple hard work, our own seed trays, plants bought with money from kind benefactors and donations into our collection bucket. In 2021, our amazing group of dedicated volunteers were also awarded the only special Judges’ Award for the year.
So this year, the year of the centenary of the (now Grade Two listed) Winterstoke Gardens, we have plans: applying for registration with Historic England as a Heritage Park (any historian or researchers contact us please); special planting in honour of the centenary; and our aim to achieve the twinning of the Winterstoke Gardens with Sydney Harbour Bridge as the architects of the James John Burnett Partnership were involved in both project’s design!
For more information or to find out how you can help write to
trustees@wgg.email