The Gardeners’ House - Penzance has been formed to renovate a derelict building in Morrab Gardens - an historic Public Garden in Penzance - and then to run it as a Green Community Hub. We will work with disadvantaged groups to address our area’s social issues through education, drawing on the green heritage of West Cornwall and of Morrab Gardens in particular. There will be three aspects to the activities at The Gardeners’ House: Community Wellbeing; Archives, history and heritage; and a Sustainability Hub.
We have been successful in obtaining government funding through the Penzance Town Deal, and are currently developing a Stage 2 bid for funding from the National Lottery Heritage Fund; if successful this will enable us to carry out work on renovating the building and will then support our planned activities for an initial period. We need to build our team of volunteers now as we move into the build phase of our project so that when we move into the operational stage we can be effective from Day 1.
Community Wellbeing – working with partner organisations to reach vulnerable members of our community. We will develop a range of people and plant-based activities including an interactive Sensory Garden and Social and Therapeutic Horticulture programme to bring our heritage alive. Reaching children right through to elders with particular focus on benefits for local dementia patients and users of the Pengarth Day Centre.
Archives, history and heritage – we will provide a home for an archive of over 2000 volumes documenting the natural history of Cornwall. We will build on this archive to support the creation of new botanical collections and a rare plant registry. We will disseminate information from these resources – and from Morrab Gardens itself – through walks, talks, film and apps.
Sustainability Hub - to provide connection for Penzance’s network of green groups, and a base for Sustainable Penzance. In addition, our activities will support their target themes of climate action.
