Community Garden, Bowthorpe

 

Bowthorpe is a largely residential suburb of Norwich on its western side. It has developed enormously since the 1970s and now comprises three major housing estates and a large industrial estate. You may have seen steam pouring from the Kettle Chips factory that is situated on the industrial estate or collected an item from the sorting office there. Other than that its not the sort of place that you might stumble upon unexpectedly. If you do ever make your way there it becomes obvious that the roads have been designed to keep Bowthorpe slightly detached from the rest of Norwich. For example if you lived on Earlham Green Lane and you had bought a TV from someone on Clover Hill Road you would need to drive 2.4 miles to get to their house even though there's a reasonable chance that you could see it from the front of your house.

 

If you are walking, cycling or taking public transport though its a different matter. Just make sure that you've got a big enough backpack for the TV. Someone did buy a TV from me a couple of years ago and took it home in his backpack on his bike. He didn't live particularly nearby. I hope he is OK.

 

It does reduce the traffic though and this together with a network of cycle and bus lanes make it feel like one of the safest places to cycle in or around Norwich. Just don't try and take a shortcut along one of the residential roads. You'll spend 20 minutes heading in what feels like the right direction and end up back where you started.

Tucked away at the centre of all the housing, just south-west of the shopping centre, there is a charming area that has been designated for leisure and recreation. There are play spaces for children of all ages, a large playing field, a village hall and a community garden. 

My commute has taken me through this area for around eight years and the garden in particular always lifts my spirits when I pass it. It seems that there was a website for the garden but it defaults to a BT site now. Luckily there is still a cached version at the Internet Archive. It tells me:

The Bowthorpe Heritage Group was formed, and registered as a charity, in 2000 to create and maintain a community garden. The group is run entirely by volunteers and funded by donations.

It also gives a brief history of the garden including a bit about what preceded the garden on the site:

In 2001, a half-acre field of disused farmland was cleared, and a crumbling 19th Century barn was demolished. A small group of residents, keen to see the land put to good use, set up the Bowthorpe Heritage Group and approached the Norwich City Council to lease the land to create a community garden.

There were a few years of planning before a butterfly shaped flowerbed was built in 2006. Most of the main features were in place by 2011 allowing volunteers to use their imagination and passion for gardening to create beautiful floral displays throughout the year.

On the north side there is a small entrance which also functions as a noticeboard, a shed, a shelter and a trellis. If you are just passing by, further on you will notice the World War I memorial flowerbed. It is a touching reminder of the fallen and the volunteers had done a good job of refreshing it in time for Remembrance Day which was the day after my visit.

The main entrance is an impressive arched pergola. Beyond and either side of the pergola is where the volunteers get to show off their skills with the flowerbeds.

The wall to the left is a history wall which has some colourful mosaics and a slightly sun bleached map (sorry about the shadow).


I was really taken by how much thought had gone into the design in order to make it a space for everyone. The volunteers can get creative with the planting but you can also see on the map that the far end of the garden has a range of habitats to encourage biodiversity.

It makes space for art in the shape of mosaics, the garden design itself and this curved, mossy bench:

The noticeboards had photos of many different groups getting involved. 

There has obviously been a huge amount of thought, effort and imagination gone into this joint venture and the result is a brilliant community resource that gives Bowthorpe a unique heart.

Instagram

Norfolk Corners now has an Instagram page. Since I started adding photos the site has directed my attention to the photographic talents of LizzieLorie who has taken some stunning photos of the community garden amongst many others:

Thanks to Lizzie for letting me brighten my page with her amazing photo.

I recommend a song at the end of each blog entry just to give a bit more of a flavour for the feature. Summer of Their Dreams by Virginia Astley is on her album titled 'From Gardens Where We Feel Secure'.

Location: Tolye Rd, Cricket Way, Norwich NR5 9PR, UK

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Chapelfield Chocolate Factory

Image
The Nestle factory seen from Chapelfield Road (2002) Photo credit: John Fielding . One of my most abiding memories of Norwich as it was when I moved here in the 90s, is the aroma of chocolate wafting past our house in NR1 when the wind was in the right direction. The factory where they made the chocolate was owned by Nestle at that time and stood on the site of what is now Chantry Place . I've heard it said that we often remember smells and sounds better than sights and that is certainly true for me in this case. I only have a vague recollection of dour looking buildings with steel tanks and pipes emerging at various points sitting unobstrusively behind the city wall as I cycled round the inner ring road to get to Blockbuster Video. On one hand, writing about renting videos from a shop makes me feel like a bit of a sepia tinted relic. It also makes me boggle at how long the old Blockbuster Video shop has stood empty. Despi
Read more

The Jenny Lind Play Ground for Children

Image
As you arrive in Norwich from the south, the A11 turns into Newmarket Road and just before you reach the city centre you pass the site of the old Victorian hospital that closed in 2003. Its domed spires (or maybe spired domes) and dutch gabled front still stand today though much of the building was rebuilt as the hospital was converted to flats. A little way behind the flats and the housing that has replaced the rest of the hospital, is a green square that includes a playground for young children and some outdoor basketball courts. On the other side of the path this marble arch stands as an entrance to a small open grass field. The playground, courts and field form Jenny Lind Park. The name 'Jenny Lind' will also be familiar to many parents whose children have needed medical attention in or around Norwich since 1854. The Jenny Lind Infirmary for Sick Children was the UK's second children's hospital after Great Ormond Street and
Read more

Queen's Hills Country Park

Image
Queen's Hills Country Park is situated in the Tud Valley to the west of Costessey which is itself a western suburb of Norwich. It was created at the same time as Queen's Hills housing estate around 15 years ago. The park is roughly delineated by the estate at its north and the River Tud to its south. Over the past year we have all become more familiar with our immediate surroundings than we would ever expected and I have enjoyed discovering how much the park has to offer. The geography of this part of Costessey has been heavily influenced by gravel quarrying. The clatter of gravel travelling through the steel tubes of Longwater Gravel's processing plant on the other side of the Tud valley is familiar enough to have become part of the ambient noise here. When the plant restarted after England's first lockdown in 2020 however, the renewed noise and light came as quite a shock. To the east lie Costessey Pits which have been repurposed as watersports and fishing lakes
Read more

Labels

Show more