Martin died suddenly after a short illness on September 25th. He was much loved and respected amongst our Kitchen Garden Volunteers. His unexpected loss is a big gap to fill. He has been our meticulous Treasurer for many years and worked at the garden through rain and shine on two mornings each week. His knowledge of gardening and of plant identities will be missed and he loved visiting gardens and nurseries; invariably buying interesting specimens at plant stalls!. He was proud of his own garden and regularly donated plants from it to the Garden and was generous in giving plants to others for their own gardens.

Martin & his family have asked for donations in lieu of flowers and suggest the Garden as a possible choice. Martin did not want a physical memorial in the garden but all donations made in his memory to this Just Giving account will be spent on making the garden a wonderful place to visit.

The community garden at Turton Tower “The Kitchen Garden” was restored and continues to be run by our team of volunteers who have raised all the money for this through donations, events, plant sales and by applying for a small number of grants. In one corner of the garden is the ruin of a two-storey gardeners’ Bothy. It was built in the late 1800s but had become a ruin with some dangerously unstable stonework, requiring it, with a surrounding area of the garden to be fenced off.

Thanks to generous donations to our Just Giving page plus other donations, a local company with heritage building skills has rebuilt very unstable parts of the walls where needed; replaced some very weak wooden lintels with matching stone and pointed the walls with lime mortar The bothy now looks fantastic. Our volunteers have erected new rabbit-proof fencing around the outside and started work on creation of the new garden areas around the building including the near completion of a wildlife pond.