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Vote, vote, vote, for the garden of your choice!
Such is the cry at Newlyn Art Gallery where in the Upper Gallery
a striking display of plants, supplied and arranged by Hardy Exotics
of Whitecross, provides a perfect setting for the display of the
five short-listed design proposals for Newlyn's community garden.
As part of the gallery's capital development scheme, work on which
is due to start early in the new year and drawings for which are
on show in the Lower Gallery, the garden areas surrounding the building
are also to be transformed.
The gallery's own garden is being re-designed and the area of Newlyn
Green between the gallery and the pathway along the sea, now fenced
off as a "dog-free" zone, is being made into a community
garden, "a lovesome thing", which will be safe and provide
pleasure for, in particular, young children and their parents, elderly
people and for those with disabilities.
The garden will also link with the proposed memorial for those
lost at sea likely to be placed nearby, and the visual impact it
will make cannot be emphasised too strongly.
For those entering Newlyn on foot it will be the gateway to the
village.
The garden will be created by the community itself. The project
has grown out of a wish for a secluded and safe garden, and it is
being taken forward and overseen by the Newlyn Association working
closely with Penwith Council and Newlyn Art Gallery.
Kevin Brownridge, chairman of the Newlyn Association, says: "It's
essentially a community garden, and we want people to have their
say about it. Now is the time to do so before work begins, and we're
hoping that people not only of Newlyn but of the whole district,
will come into the gallery, take a good look at the proposals, and
vote for the garden of their choice."
But, be warned, the choice will not be an easy one, as all five
of the proposed designs are superb. The short-listed designers are:
Matthew Bell, a garden designer from London who grew up in Cornwall;
Chris Greene, a garden designer based at Devoran near Truro; Fenella
Griffin, a landscape architect based in London; Sarah Price, a garden
designer and artist based in Surrey; and Michael Westley & Rachel
Damerell, landscape architect and garden design lecturer who work
as a team, also based at Devoran near Truro.
A scheme which is part of Newlyn's regeneration, Kevin Brownridge
says: "We really are looking forward to receiving considerable
in-put from the community. It will be at least a three-months long
project and we intend to employ as much local labour as possible.
We see it as a merging of the old and the new, but it has to be
a good garden, high quality is of the essence, and to help us achieve
that, and I say again, we must have the support of the community.
I ask everyone to please, please come into the gallery and vote!
I can assure those who do so that, while the result of the voting
will not be the last word - that will rest with the selection committee,
comprising members of the Newlyn Association, Newlyn Art Gallery,
Newlyn Society of Artists, the Fish Industrial Forum, and Penwith
Council - it will be carefully considered and will play an important
part in their final decision."
To help voters make up their minds, presentations by the five short-listed
designers are being made in Newlyn Art Gallery, 7-9pm on Thursday,
November 24.
The polls close for voting at midday, 12 noon, on Friday, November
25, and the award announcement and reception is being held at 7-9pm
on Saturday, November 26.
article copyright © THE CORNISHMAN
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