Members' Events 2011

Private guided walk in Wilderness Wood
Hadlow Down, Near Uckfield, East Sussex
Thursday 28th April at 2pm
Cost: £14 to include tea and cake

Our visit, arranged to coincide with the bluebell season, begins with a walk in the 2000 year old ancient wood. The theme of the accompanying talk "Poison, Glue and Magic" is based on peculiar traditional plant use. After discussing sustainable woodland management, members are free to explore nature trails. In 2010 this beautiful High Weald woodland gained 1st prize in the Royal Forestry Society Excellence in Forestry and Quality Timber Production Awards. Judges were impressed that its owners had spent over 30 years diversifying slowly and sustainably without detracting from the forest focus. A better example of British multipurpose forestry would be hard to find. Tea and cake will be served in the old barn with an opportunity to buy timber products.

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Private visit and tour of Riverhill House and Gardens
Near Sevenoaks, Kent
Tuesday 17th May at 2pm
Cost: £16 to include a cream tea

Our visit combines a tour of the 18thC house (containing panelled rooms with portraits and family mementoes) - not usually open to the public - with a stroll around the 130 acre hillside Himalayan gardens renowned for azaleas, rhododendrons and fine specimen trees including Cedar of Lebanon. Four generations of the Rogers family lived here and John Rogers - a keen plant collector - introduced many new plants in Victorian times. Last year the Channel 4 series featured this historic house with its extensive views across the Weald in 'Country House Rescue' . A cream tea will be served after the visit. _______________________________________________

Private visit and tour of Charleston Farmhouse
Firle, near Lewes, East Sussex
Wednesday 6th July at 10.30am
Cost: £13

After their London childhood upbringing, Vanessa Bell (the painter) and Virginia Woolf (the writer) turned a Sussex farmhouse into a country retreat for writers, painters and intellectuals known as the 'Bloomsbury Group'. The 'sisters Tour' enables us to see the kitchen. Vanessa and Duncan Grant painted the decorative interior, their creativity extending into the walled garden - containing sculptures. A WW1 vegetable patch/hen run became a quintessential painters' summer garden, mixing Mediterranean influence with cottage garden appeal. On arrival coffee and biscuits will be served. Weather permitting, a planned afternoon walk is due to start from here; either bring picnics or lunch at the cafe first.

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Private visit and tour of Sussex Prairie Gardens
Henfield, West Sussex
Tuesday 6th September at 2pm
Cost: £16.50 including a cream tea

This six acre garden on the edge of the Downs was recently transformed by owners Paul and Pauline McBride (taught by a Dutch master) into a stunning American=style prairie. containing unusual herbaceous perennials - flowering alongside drifts of ornamental grasses - it is part of an influential British garden movement. Swathes of strongly shaped, richly coloured perennials mix naturalistically with grasses (at their best in September). Although ambitious in scale, it is full of inspiration for small domestic gardens and was publicised on the BBC 'Gardeners world'. A cream tea will be served afterwards in the attractive barn.

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