Happy New Year!  

As we look forward to warmer weather and welcoming back our community groups this year. It’s a joy to remember the projects, events and activities that took place over the last six months of 2022.  

Here Harvinder Kaur Bahra, our Community Participation Manager shares her highlights of projects that have been co-developed in partnership with local groups. Projects that build wellbeing and help connect local people to the beautiful surroundings at Chiswick House & Gardens.   

JULY 

We continued to host local refugee families from West London Welcomes, spending a morning every month with local arts practitioners Art Jar in a range of creative activities inspired by the changing seasons. In July we made full use of the fine weather in the Kitchen Garden with an outdoor trail of activities.   

Chiswick House and Gardens is a good place for me. I am always happy when I am here. It is a place for learning to relax too my mind.

Also in July we started our new Garden Together Wednesdays, welcoming community groups to join us every other Wednesday in the Kitchen Garden. Helping our Kitchen Gardener with a range of seasonal tasks, from weeding beds and laying woodchip paths, to harvesting produce, while developing gardening confidence and improving wellbeing.  

This is exactly what we want to be doing, working in the garden, using our hands and helping you.  We love seeing behind the scenes and understanding how it all works.

AUGUST  

In the midst of the August heatwave Let’s Go Outside and Learn joined us to deliver a series of family friendly summer workshops. We welcomed underserved families, with little access to their own green spaces, to enjoy the Kitchen Garden with a variety of creative activities to bring them closer to nature. 

Hounslow Seniors Trust celebrated the end of another Hounslow Older Peoples Festival with us. Bringing together local residents to enjoy a day of outdoor Tai Chi, tabla playing, and walks and talks with our Gardeners. Finishing with a much-deserved picnic.  

I learnt lots about rotating produce. I haven’t actually got my own garden, just a balcony, but maybe one day! I’d recommend a visit to the House and Gardens to anyone interested in history and gardening/nature.

We also delivered a co-designed ‘Farm to Fork’ project with HAAYA, a Hounslow-based youth charity, together with outdoor learning practitioners Cultivate London. Working with mothers and young children to explore the food we grow in the Kitchen Garden and making fresh, nutritious and delicious food to enjoy together.  

 I was looking for a while to get inspired. I finally got it at Chiswick House. I learnt how to cook a chutney, using wonky veg and fruit! Thank you.

It might have been the summer holidays for students at Cavendish Primary School, but lots of them joined us with their families to enjoy our family gardening sessions led by Hammersmith Community Gardens Association. They got stuck into weeding, watering and harvesting, while hunting mini-beasts and making flower crowns.  

Having this to come to every Friday throughout the summer holidays has been so nice.

I liked watering the apple and pear trees and watering the flowers too.

SEPTEMBER 

Heston West Big Local returned at the beginning of autumn with local Chef Manju Malhi for the much-loved ‘Cooking at Chiswick’ workshops. Each session is developed by Manju to give participants confidence to cook tasty, healthy meals using simple ingredients and fresh seasonal produce from the Kitchen Garden. 

I loved coming to the cooking class and it was really enjoyable. I learnt how to cook different foods and loved the atmosphere surrounded by friendly people and learnt new things.

SEN London Parents Group continued to visit once a month for their Sunday self-led family volunteering sessions. Given a list of practical tasks to complete by the Gardens Team, the enthusiastic family groups have been busy dead heading roses, clearing borders, collecting pinecones and trimming hedges. 

It’s not often I get asked by parents when the next session is for something, but they do for the gardening at Chiswick. The enthusiasm is huge. We love participating in the ongoing maintenance of the Kitchen Garden, and to know we are a small part of that.

We started an important research project with Border Crossings for their Botany Bay Project. Working with our volunteers to explore the heritage and migration stories of the plants growing in our Kitchen Garden, many of which originate in lands far away from Chiswick. Find the leaflet here.

It was great to research and discuss with the team how various edible and medicinal plants came to our shores and further understand what we can learn from indigenous cultures.

OCTOBER 

In October Chiswick School added to our evolving Black Chiswick through History display with a thoughtfully researched and designed leaflet, exploring people of colour associated with Chiswick House and the local area.  

Black Chiswick through History is a research project working in collaboration with Chiswick School and Hogarth Youth & Community Centre to research our collection more deeply and develop creative ways to share this work with our visitors.   

We were excited to welcome back local students and teachers from Cavendish Primary School for their new school year. Our Meet Me at the Gates project sees students get involved in a variety of seasonal gardening activities with Hammersmith Community Gardens Association, across the site and throughout the school year.  

It was great planting the bulbs. I love nature.

I loved the planting. I loved putting the little seeds in the soil.

Artists from Kite Studio also returned in autumn, along with participants from Rivercourt Project who support local neurodiverse adults and their families. To take part in another creative six-week project, Painting Plants in Autumn, using the change of seasons in the Kitchen Garden and the autumn colours to inspire their painting.   

Women’s support group Trinjan made a welcome return to Chiswick House, with another co-created project with ‘Bring into Being’ artist Jaimini Patel. Sharing stories, while collecting and pressing autumn leaves to make a giant ephemeral work of art that explores ideas of cycles, renewal and change with nature and ourselves. 

Exploring nature was absolutely wonderful. Especially finding perfect dahlias fallen under the plants. Selecting, arranging and pressing leaves etc was good exercise to develop attention span. Look forward to the next session to see the change in the work we did today.

Students from Queensmill School, who specialise in supporting young people with autism, returned to the Gardens after a long break. It was fantastic to have the students back, assisting the Garden Team with a variety of tasks from weeding and clearing leaves to laying paths with bark chipping in the Kitchen Garden. 

NOVEMBER 

The Wild Minds Project revisited us with their four-week Creativity in Nature, project for young people in West London who may be experiencing anxiety or stress. Using art and nature-based activities to support mental health, build optimism and importantly, help local young people to develop new friendships. 

I have just really enjoyed coming here and doing such great things. I really hope there’ll be another session here at Chiswick House so I can come back and do really enjoyable things again.

In November we kicked off another co-developed project with MindFood and the Masbro Elders Project. A six-week project focused on Wellbeing in Winter. Learning how to care for our wellbeing and our plants over the winter months. Using the last of the winter produce from the Kitchen Garden we made delicious pickles and began planting ready for spring.  

A wonderful session today explaining the garden and looking at different salad leaves and what can be eaten and harvested at this time of the year.

DECEMBER 

As we came to the end of the year we started a new partnership, donating weekly produce from the Kitchen Garden to Surplus to Supper, who redistribute food to food banks, schools, care homes and shelters across Hounslow, including Fight Hunger, Feed Hope. We look forward to working with them throughout 2023. 

It’s lovely to reflect on the many other groups that have visited us throughout the last few months, using the Gardens to be creative and active. Including Hounslow Action for Youth, walking groups from One You Hounslow, Hounslow Health Outreach Team, Future Gardeners, The Good Gym, Hounslow Borough Respiratory Support Group, Hounslow Children’s Centre and many more! 

Plans for 2023 

We have an exciting year ahead, building on existing partnerships, initiating new co-developed projects, showcasing creative collaborations and continuing to develop joint ways of working, that make full use of our Gardens and improve people’s connections to their community, nature and wellbeing.  

If you would like to get involved with the Growing Together at Chiswick House community programme please do get in touch – community@chgt.org.uk 

These projects are kindly funded by: