The royal train drew up to Sherborne station right on time, just as the drizzle of rain stopped.

The Queen and Duke got off the train to greet the reception party. Here the major of Sherborne, Cllr Marjorie Snowden, is presented to Her Majesty.

As the Queen emerged from the station she was greeted by a peal of the Abbey bells and an enthusiastic crowd who had come to welcome her.

And the Duke smiled and joked with the flag-wavers as they shouted their greetings:

The royal party visited Sherborne Abbey where they met schoolchildren in a tent having a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party and they also visited a food fair in the Abbey grounds. Then they dropped into the Digby Memorial Hall to join a 1950s-style coffee morning in celebration of the Queen’s coronation in 1953.

Sherborne is honoured to have the Queen visit our town – the only stop in Dorset in the Diamond Jubilee tour.

All too soon the visit was over and the Queen and Duke waved goodbye as their car took them back to the station:

Thank you for visiting Sherborne, Your Majesty – please come again soon!

The town was briefly brought to a halt – except for the kids and their snowballs!

The countryside took on a ‘wonderland’ look as trees froze and snow reflected the light:

And familiar plants and flowers became spectacular and sights in their own right:

Winter has its compensations as it gives us another view on our world.

But soon the snowdrops will be poking through, and spring will be on the way…

The Neighbourhood Awards were given to the following locations where volunteer groups had contributed to enhancing the environment of their neighbourhoods:

Quarr Lane Park

Acreman StreeCar Park

Fosters Furlong

Long Street Planter

Culverhayes Planter

Sherborne Police Station

Well done to all these groups for making a difference in the town. The Police Station award was actually graded as ‘Outstanding’ – well done to the girls and boys in blue!

Little did we know what a mammoth task we had set ourselves! Organising the whole judging competition took weeks and would culminate in a whole week of judging visits. On some days there was more than one team of judges going out to judge — all day!

During the judging week our judges looked at more than 80 front and back gardens, 143 allotments, 90 homes in the Quarr Lane Park and 120 businesses, pubs and restaurants. Those who entered the competition told us how pleased they were to show the judges around.

Awards were presented to the winners at a presentation ceremony at the Butterfly House, Castle Gardens on judging day, Tuesday 13 July.

Jean Gillingham receives judging award from Mrs Wingfield-Digby with Mayor Jane Smith looking on

For a complete list of the prizewinners in Growing for a Gold, click here.

Caroline Rowland, organiser of Sherborne in Bloom, would like to thank the following people. We are indebted to Aurelie Ryser, our Douzelage student from Granville who designed the wonderful judges scoring sheets and so much more. We were so appreciative of the commitment and dedication of our judges and photographers, Betty Deavin, Brian Haigh and Keith Lane, who weathered so well the scorching hot days.

We also received tremendous support from our sponsor and head judge Louise Burks of Castle Gardens who hosted all the lunches and half-time refreshments for the judges and photographers. Our judges thought it a real treat to be served with the most delicious cream teas for elevenses!

Grateful thanks to all of our judges: Louise Burks, Brian King, Tim Stiles, Janet Vincent, Jean Gillingham, Mary MaClean, Katherine Vickery, Christine Stones, Malcolm Mills, Steve Fry, Mary Brodie, Elaine Spencer-White, Paul Newman, Cordelia MacFarlane and Sally Westlotorn. Thanks also to Gillian Langham of Sherborne Town Council for showing our judges around the allotment sites.

Thank you to all Sherborne Bradford Abbas Camera Club members for their efforts throughout the year especially Gillian Gunner who also runs our fantastic website.

And finally a huge thanks to Paul Newman, Ady, Simon, Alex and Colin from the Town Council for keeping our town looking so good all year round.

Venue
Butterfly House, Castle Gardens, New Road

Opening Times
9:00am – 5:00pm Mon-Fri 12-16 July and Sun 18 July

On Display
Photos taken by Sherborne Bradford Abbas Camera Club
Gardens in ‘Growing for a Gold’ competition

Admission Free

Plenty of parking – come along and see more fabulous photos like this:

The South West Market Town Awards are part of the National Market Town Awards which each year celebrate the great variety of volunteer-led projects which are helping to regenerate and sustain small towns throughout the country. The Awards are organised by Action for Market Towns, the national organization with over 400 towns in membership which supports the regeneration and vitality of small towns.

Here Gillian Gunner, chairman of the Sherborne Bradford Abbas Camera Club, receives the award from AMT board member, Peter Godfrey, on behalf of Sherborne In Bloom.

The prize was awarded for ‘… the regeneration of Sherborne station in partnership with community groups, young people, business and South West Trains. The idea was to bring light and colour to the dark and dingy platform 2  of the station, promote the town and provide passengers, tourists and local residents with a permanent display of local art.’

The judges were very impressed by the impact and low cost of the project and its applicability to any number of venues both within Sherborne and beyond.

Traders from across Normandy arrived with their stalls and took over Cheap Street, selling a delicious array of French foods and goodies including bread, pâtisserie, charcuterie, cheeses and, of course, wines… and much more.

We were there with a stall selling Sherborne In Bloom shopping bags (sacs à provisions) which were priced in both Euros and pounds sterling.

Many of the French stall-holders bought shopping bags to take home as souvenirs.

The event was organised with the support of Sherborne Chamber of Trade and Commerce and Sherborne Town Council. A financial contribution was made in support of Dorset and Somerset Air Ambulance.

Long Live l’Entente Cordiale!

In the South West In Bloom Presentation Event at the Westland Leisure Complex in Yeovil, Sherborne was awarded the highest prize in its class: a Gold award and the Preece Cup.

In what was termed the largest ‘In Bloom’ event ever to be held in the country, 450 delegates from around the South West region gathered together to see who had been awarded what in the 2009 regional contest.

Pictured here are the Sherborne contingent who attended the awards ceremony, holding the certificates and cup that we took away. On the right is Barry Cruse, one of the two judges who marked us in the competition.

The Preece Cup is a major award for the town in a very competitive category.

Caroline Rowland

Caroline Rowland, the lead co-ordinator for Sherborne In Bloom, was delighted with the town’s achievement:  ‘So many people have worked so hard for our entry this year and I am delighted that their efforts have been so richly rewarded.

A big ‘thank you’ to everyone who took part – we can be rightly proud of our town and its hard-working and gifted gardeners! Now that we know that Sherborne is up there with the winners in the region, our task for 2010 is to stay there…’

Preece Cup

Sherborne’s success came in the year that the judging criteria were changed to include more emphasis on environmental responsibility.

In their appraisal of the town’s entry, the judges mentioned our impressive heritage, our recycling and environmental credentials, the excellent wildlife areas and the contribution made by so many individuals and groups within the community.

In these difficult times it is great to have some good news to share.

Well done, Sherborne!

Now here’s a good idea! Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (of River Cottage fame) is launching this initiative called ‘Landshare’ which puts people who want to cultivate land in touch with those who have land available. He’s doing this via Channel 4 TV which broadcasts his cookery/country lifestyle programme.

Hugh’s idea is simple. There are more and more people who want to grow their own food, but there are long waiting lists for allotments. So, find more land. People who have gardens that they would like to share or landowners with unused land could satisfy the demand by making their land available.

The TV programme has featured several examples of how this can work. In one case, a woman whose garden was too big for her to manage allowed another woman to come in and work it in exchange for a share of the vegetable crop. And there are other examples of people ‘guerilla gardening’, planting vegetables in untended public spaces.

Find out more about this excellent idea at http://landshare.channel4.com/

At last week’s South West In Bloom awards presentation, one of the prizes that Sherborne came back with was this splendiforous cup which was awarded to the Gryphon School for their contribution to Sherborne In Bloom.  Towns previously awarded this cup include Camborne, Midsomer Norton, Weston-Super-Mare, Seaton, Chulmleigh and Exmouth. Sherborne’s name can now be engraved alongside this worthy company.

So what did the school do to gain such prestigious recognition? Well, here are a few candid snaps of the youth of Sherborne getting stuck in:

The kids planted numerous adopt-a-plots around the town, including Bristol Road, Coldharbour, Digby Road, Kitt Hill, Sherborne Station, Sherborne Police Station and more. And they also painted a mural in Newland South car park and posters for Sherborne Station.

The judges were clearly impressed by all this child labour.

Well done, school! Top marks!