Environment, News, Politics

‘A volunteer project like no other’: How Wollaton Park’s abandoned walled garden became an oasis at city landmark

By Joe Locker, Local Democracy Reporter

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“This is the oasis in the heart of Wollaton,” says Steve Battlemuch, who represents the leafy city suburb on Nottingham City Council.

The walled garden on the grounds of Wollaton Park was largely forgotten and shrouded in dense vegetation for decades, before hundreds of dedicated volunteers began to bring it back to life in 2015.

Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, the fifth and sixth Lords Middleton spent considerable sums building gardens and park buildings across the vast hall estate.

Their projects included an expansive heated walled garden, built to provide fruits and vegetables to the household.

Dozens of fireplaces were built into the walls, which were hollow at the centre, allowing them to heat up – providing the ideal conditions for growing exotic fruits.

It remained in use even after the hall and park was sold to what is now the city council in 1924.

However, it was eventually abandoned in the 1980s and left to fall into ruin.

Decades passed before the Wollaton Walled Garden Project launched to reclaim the four-acre wonder from being lost to all but the history books.

The community-led collaboration between the Friends of Wollaton Park group and the Wollaton Hall Historical Society has since led to the site reopening to the public during tour and event days.

“It is a volunteer project like no other,” said Cllr Battlemuch, who helped set up the Friends of Wollaton Park group after his election in 2013.

“It is a secret walled garden that most people who come to Wollaton Park don’t even know exists.

“The work that has gone in here from the Friends of Wollaton Park group – to the wider volunteering community – has been magnificent.

“Hundreds of people involved, twice a week, painstaking work.

“It has restored an area that was completely overgrown – restoring some historical parts of the park that people had completely forgotten existed.

“All of this done on a shoestring of volunteer fundraising, with support from Wollaton Park management and the council in overview, but without any substantial funding.

“It is an incredible achievement.”

Andy Jackson, 68, who sits on the project’s committee, says hundreds of volunteers have been gradually working to restore the site.

Some of Cllr Battlemuch’s ward budgets were used to kick-start the rebuilding of walls and install a new gate, but these have since been slashed by the authority under recent budget cuts.

Most of the work has therefore been done through fundraising efforts.

Walls have been rebuilt, heritage and sensory gardens planted, fruit trees grown, and the Head Gardener’s Cottage – built between 1783 and 1788 – almost completely restored.

All of this work has been done by volunteers, each of them bringing their expertise in architecture, structural engineering, and horticulture, to begin the process of restoring the garden to its former glory.

Mr Jackson said many of the walls had collapsed after the acidic nature of the gases – that filled the walls during the heating process – reacted with the lime mortar.

Many of the volunteers have now been trained in repointing brickwork, allowing them to reconstruct them and maintain them for years to come.

A cucumber house, featuring solar-powered heated planting beds, was almost completely rebuilt in 2023 – following a fundraising effort that brought in £32,000.

“It is a community,” Mr Jackson said. “For me that is just as important as what the end result is.

“We’ve restored a walled garden. We are working on restoring the buildings. But it has brought a lot of people together.

“Since we’ve started doing these tours and festivals, it has brought a lot of people from around Nottingham, and they really appreciate the place.

“We’ve got engineers, architects, builders, people that grow. We are all very hands on and we get things done.”

The groups involved in the project have now submitted plans for the refurbishment and restoration of the old potting sheds and supporting buildings, including the restoration of windows, doors, roofing, walls and fireplaces.

The buildings, called ‘bothies’, were once used as accommodation for journeymen.

The men, training as apprentice gardeners, stayed in the bothies to keep warm – thanks to their positioning up against the heated walls.

Once restored, Cllr Battlemuch says the garden could have even more potential.

“You could see fairs of community events here, weddings here, a tea room developing here or even holiday lets,” he added.

“There will be a million ideas people would like to see.”