Reports 2022-2023 membership year

Fen Ditton Gardening Club

During the afternoon of the first Friday in September, the Gardening Club Committee could be seen in the Village Hall, busily setting out three long tables and ensuring the room was prepared with entry forms in labelled envelopes ready to receive the many exhibitors who had been growing and harvesting, crocheting and carving, photographing, baking and jam making. The following day, Saturday 2^nd September, was the day of the Fen Ditton Village Garden Show and soon after 9.00am the exhibits began to arrive.

Carrots and onions, tomatoes in trusses, tomatoes on a plate, potatoes, marrow, beetroot and courgettes, runner beans and French beans were arrayed along the first table. Then came space for mixed herbs, both cooking and eating apples, pears, raspberries and other delicious-looking soft fruit. Roses stole the glances amidst the asters, annuals and perennials; the flower arrangements were eye catching and the buttonholes exquisite. There was just room for houseplants before the array of jars of jam, jelly, marmalade and chutney. If this wasn’t enough to make one’s mouth water, there were the Victoria sponges and frosted walnut cakes set out on the third table. The men had interpreted the cheese straw recipe with panache and spirals and giant sized biscuits were on offer. The industrious inhabitants of Fen Ditton displayed their skill and patience in the handicraft section; a rustic chair, a beautifully carved plaque, a crocheted ‘top knot for a post box’ advertising the Show (complete with crocheted tomatoes, cucumbers, roses, carrots and flag), a pottery lamp base and matching lamp shade and a crocheted blanket were all on display. Then came the pictures in any medium and the photographs of the village and the Church before the children’s gingerbead men and their garden paintings completed the display.

It was a pleasure to see such a large number of entries and of such a high standard and the judges were hard pressed this year to make their decisions, but decisions there were and the Show opened in the afternoon for everyone to see the outcome. After enough time for votes to be cast for the People’s Award, the trophies were presented:

SPECIAL AWARDS	TROPHY	NAME
Most points Section A	Bob Fison cup	T Warnock
Most points Section B	Ansell cup	H Warnock
Most points Section C	J Francis cup	W Orme
Most points Section D	Cambridge United cup	C Hawkins
Most points Section E	John Drake memorial cup	E Vause
Best handicraft exhibit	Joanna Faye trophy	C Harvey
Best vegetable exhibit	Ray Matthews cup	T Warnock
Best fruit exhibit	Brown & Tawse cup	T Warnock
Best flower exhibit	Kingsbury cup	P Hutt
Best flower arrangement	June Wright cup	J Pratt
Best pot plant	The Brenda cup	H Warnock
Best domestic entry	CAMGAS cup	C Jones
Best photographic entry	J & M Huntridge cup	J Parr
Collection of vegetables (class 15)	Len Gooden cup	T Warnock
Best exhibit in Show	St Mary rosebowl	J Charnock-Jones
Most points in Show	Frank Burton trophy RHS Banksian Medal*	T Warnock
Novice (non winner in last 3 years)	C & C Lang salver	A Hilton
People's award	Paulson salver	C Harvey

* for RHS Banksian Medal, 2021, 2022 winners excluded: 2021 S Beeson, 2022 P Hutt + J Vause

All that remained was for any surplus fruit and vegetables to be auctioned very ably by Tony and the raffle to be conducted by Jill; another successful Gardening Club Show was over.

The AGM of the FD Gardening Club takes place in the Village Hall at 7.30pm on Tuesday, 17^th October. As costs of Speakers, hire of the Village Hall and heating the Hall during meetings have all risen, It is proposed to increase the membership fee to £10 at the AGM.

The first meeting of the new gardening year will be on Tuesday 21^st November in the Village Hall when the Head Gardener of Jesus College will speak about the Jesus College gardens.

FEN DITTON GARDENING CLUB

On 28^th June, with the barometer set to ‘Fair’, a group from the Fen Ditton Gardening Club boarded the coach for their yearly outing to visit a garden of note. This year we headed West to the Swiss Garden which is part of the Shuttleworth Collection near Biggleswade.

The journey took just three quarters of an hour, with the last part through narrow country lanes and pretty villages before skirting the edge of the famous aerodrome and coming to a halt conveniently before the café where cake, scones and restorative coffee could be purchased. As the café and shop are mostly concerned with flying machines, the group was anxious to see the famous Swiss garden which is one of the Royal Horticultural Society’s partner gardens. Up to then, it had been hidden from view but through the café, we discovered an oasis.

Created by Lord Ongley just over two hundred years ago, it is a fine example of a late Regency garden in the Swiss picturesque style, fashionable at the time. On buying the estate, the nine acre garden was carefully preserved by the Shuttleworth family and a recent sensitive restoration, coupled with suitable paths laid with a grant from the National Heritage Fund, has made the garden accessible to all. The gradual inclines of the landscape are designed to lead the visitor to various vantage points where seats enable contemplation of the gently rolling lawns surrounded by shrubberies. It is a garden of tranquillity.

Built into the garden structure are many features which can be found along the perimeter path or one of the interior paths. In a central position is the feature which gives the garden its name, a summer house with a Swiss style exterior, the Swiss cottage. It is a pleasant place to sit and survey the rolling grassy areas, interconnecting lakes and islands. Another vantage point is the Indian kiosk, built nearly two hundred years ago and still with its beautiful glass panel intact. The Shuttleworth collection of ferns is housed in the grotto and fernery which is built from Pulhamite, a rock-like material invented about 150 years ago and widely used in grottoes, follies and rock gardens of that era.

Other notable features are the attractive bridges across water, the impressive ironwork rose bowers across the broadwalk, the two seated privy, the chapel and a slightly later addition of a rock garden which is home to alpines and spring bulbs. Then there are the trees and shrubs; it is a garden pleasing to the eye, built to capture and frame pleasing views with greenery, shapes and with some majestic trees such as the Californian Redwood and the cedar of Lebanon. The resident peacocks did put in an appearance and even displayed that amazing tail as if to say they were in charge. We came away refreshed and relaxed.

Many of us could not resist entering the six enormous hangars to see the Shuttleworth collection – and what a collection it is! Begun in the 1930’s by heir to the estate Richard Shuttleworth, old aircraft and vehicles were rescued and brought back to Old Warden Park to restore. Richard was a pilot, racing driver and self-taught mechanic and his concept was not to produce a museum with pieces of machines rescued and put on display but to have a huge collection of aircraft which are lovingly restored and made flight ready. After his death in 1940, his mother, Dorothy, continued adding to the collection.

Both the order of the display and the helpful and informative captions and biographies illustrate how aviation design developed from Edwardian times up until the 1950s. A 1909 Blériot XI, which is still airworthy, is the world's oldest flying aeroplane and it is regularly taken into the sky at air shows. The methods of propulsion, and the materials used, the size and fuselage design all developed before and into the first and second World Wars. It was a very humbling experience to stand before a tiny aircraft with just room for the pilot and with little outside protection, and think of those young men in their late teens or early twenties who so bravely flew these machines into enemy territory so that we might survive.

From early 20th century aircraft, the collection continues with cars, buses, motorbikes, steam engines and farm machinery, all lovingly restored. These veteran vehicles of all shapes and sizes are capable of being driven and ridden, a tribute to the skilled and passionate engineers, volunteers, drivers, and riders. The workshop is always open too, with a volunteer or engineer on hand to answer questions.

It was an unusual and stimulating experience and all too soon our time there came to an end and we climbed back aboard our modern coach for the journey back to Fen Ditton, each of us nursing stories of our favourite bit of garden or favourite story from the hangars and a determination to bring our grandchildren to experience the story of a family through aviation and gardening.