Winthrop Park Community Garden

Many of the gardens you can visit are grand, historic or well-known favourites. But sometimes, it can be a smaller, less well-known garden which makes the most lasting impression.
Such is the small, sensory garden in Rotherham that has really captured the heart of its local community. Winthrop Park is a ‘nature therapy’ garden, created as a place of tranquillity for people suffering from illness. Once the site of a derelict sewage treatment works, not only does the garden act as a balm to visitors, it is also revitalising the land.
The garden’s creators are David Bowser and his wife, Carol. David suffered a stroke 10 years ago and struggled with a lack of support while recovering. “I instinctively turned to gardening, and found it helped me,” he explains. “I realised that if time spent in the garden could do this for me, it might be able to help other people.”
It was then that the couple first started thinking about the benefits of a sensory garden.

Derelict land
In 2000 they started looking for land to buy but it was a tricky process. They didn’t have the budget to buy high quality land, and the garden had to be flat to allow wheelchair access.
Carol regularly used to walk her dogs past a derelict council-owned site of a former sewage treatment works. It had been untouched for 25 years, so doing anything with it was going to pose a huge challenge.
Nevertheless David and Carol went ahead, becoming the proud owners on Christmas Eve 2003.
Totally overgrown, the site contained chemical tankers and the soil was heavily polluted. It took Carol, David and their son a year to simply clear the undergrowth, with all the work being done in any free time from their full-time jobs.
“When we started on the project, we had problems with plants being stolen, fly tipping and graffiti,” says David. “We stopped work for a while to raise the money for security fences around the garden, which gave us peace of mind from thieves and also helps with the security when we’re working with vulnerable people.”
But the word was spreading about what the couple were trying to do. First of all local people started donating plants, then the community formed an impromptu neighbourhood watch and, as respect for the project grew, the vandalism petered out.
Lack of funds meant they couldn’t afford mature planting. All the trees and hedges in the garden were grown from whips, and a lot of the plants from seed. They managed to secure some lottery funding and Winthrop Park opened to the public for the first time in summer 2005.

The recovery of the land
One of the more difficult obstacles was the toxic waste in the soil. The ground was damaged by chemical spills but fortunately David has a background in science and had previously worked with the University of Sheffield, coming up with ideas for suitable planting on heavy steel industry sites. Part of that research had involved planting willow for coppicing, with the surprise result that it improved the ground. With this in mind David made a list of plants that would survive on polluted soil, and at the same time, help to mend it.
“We like to treat it as an environmental project as well as a community project, and wanted to choose plants that would survive in the soil but also help with visitors’ wellbeing,” he says.
The only original plant that remains on the site is a central willow, which is still showing the results of the toxic waste in the soil, getting rust every year. The soil is monitored annually, and is now nearly back to normal. The picture above shows one of the last remaining polluted areas, where planting remains difficult.

Nature therapy park
The site is today a beautiful nature therapy park. Paths lead to themed areas planted with thousands of colourful and scented plants, shrubs and young trees to stimulate the senses as well as creating an oasis of peace. The garden also includes unusual art, sculpture, a large working greenhouse and a café.
The local community has really taken the garden to heart – when the garden first opened David and Carol expected to have around 150 visitors, but last year they had 6,500 visitors and expect to have around 8,000 by the end of this year.
 The park is run by Second Nature Life Support, a UK registered charity, which relies totally upon fund-raising and charity support to raise the £45,000 annual running costs.
Volunteers played a major role in getting the garden up and running and much of the work continues to be done by 64 volunteers, 10 in the garden, and the others in front of house, the plant sale area and café.
The garden is open to everyone without charge and, on Sundays, is particularly popular with families. In addition to being an important garden for sick people, it has also proved a great place for carers to come and relax.

All the senses
Winthrop Park is based on the idea that interacting with nature can help stimulate your senses. It contains plants with different textures, strong scents, vivid colours and even plants that create certain sounds in the wind. “We saw the garden as a blueprint for this type of project,” explains David. Now he is approached by hospices wanting to gain ideas for their own sensory gardens. 
There is wheelchair access to all parts and the plants are in raised beds so children and people in wheelchairs can enjoy them up close. It is only three quarters of an acre in size, but the path winds around the borders, creating seclusion and peace. Scent is very important and there are seating areas next to white buddleia, catmint, fragrant lilies, and a hedge of mixed herbs. One visitor, blind from birth, could identify the different types of grasses by scent.
Bold colours help the partially-sighted enjoy the garden. In the centre there is a bright red wall, edged with variegated ivy. It has vivid white stones around its base and topiary shapes against the wall to create solid blocks of colour and is slightly curved to cast deep shadows throughout the day. Nearby multicoloured glass sculptures rise out of a flowerbed, glistening in the sunlight. Sounds are created by tall rustling grasses, splashing water features and tinkling wind.
There is a great feeling of peace and tranquillity as the winding paths lead you through an arbour underplanted with viola ‘Orange Duet’ and wisteria above. Prunus ‘Amber Beauty’ stands out with its gorgeous golden trunk, and there are familiar, nostalgic favourites, such as lavender and hebes.
Winthrop Park is a beautiful garden for relaxation and respite, with a community spirit that is hard to beat.

Visiting information
 Winthrop Park, Wickersley, Rotherham S66 1EE
 Tel. 01709 709335
 www.winthroppark.co.uk
 Open 1 April-31 October Monday-Friday 11am-3pm, Sunday 10.30am-4pm
Free admission Disabled access to all areas