First post
For 33 years my family has been fortunate to live in the beautiful village of Walsham le Willows, buried within the cereal belt of the West Suffolk countryside. I want to try to convey some thoughts and feelings about living in such a rural spot which over the years has developed a strong community spirit amongst its 1200 population.
To give my thoughts structure I intend to use our Open Gardens Weekend as the theme for my wanderings and invite chums to add their comments about the this hugely successful venture which this year celebrates its 30th anniversary.
Today, driving throughout Suffolk, Open Gardens are widely advertised in many of our villages and in even some of our towns. Visiting other gardens has become a national pastime. It must have something to do with our natural curiosity and maybe the opportunity to seek for good ideas which can be replicated at home.
First though some history of how and why the Walsham le Willows Open Gardens started. In 1980 Canon John Rutherford was our parish priest. Before his ordination he had been a maths teacher at Charterhouse. John was a practical priest who realised that our Church of St. Mary’s needed some tender loving care in the form of physical maintenance, which needed money. As the Good Lord was unlikely to provide, John decided to take action. At that time there was only one village in Suffolk, Chelsworth, who held a Gardens Open Day. John, accompanied by Hillary Russell, went to visit Chelsworth and both were much impressed by what they saw, so together they set about recruiting Garden Owners in the village to open, with great success.
After much hard work led by John but carefully administered by Hillary 23 Gardens opened to positive public response and £2000
