HIGH FIVE FOR HIGHDOWN!
Nationally important garden awarded £900,000 to secure its future.
The future of the famous garden of a noted horticulturist is now secure thanks to a £900,000 Heritage Lottery grant. Highdown Gardens, the creation of Sir Frederick Stern, was gifted to Worthing Borough Council after he died in 1967.
Sir Frederick moved to Highdown Towers, now a hotel, near Goring-by-Sea in
1909, and after he married in 1919 he and his wife spent more than 50 years creating the gardens out of a disused chalk pit. A vice-president of the RHS, Sir Frederick sponsored many plant hunting expeditions to China and Bhutan by people such as Frank Kingdon-Ward, Ernest Wilson and Reginald Farrer, receiving plants and seeds which he then planted at Highdown. Original specimens of some of those plants still exist, but due to their age are in urgent need of propagation.
Highdown was designated a Plant Heritage National Plant Collection in 1989 to recognise the importance of
the plants Sir Frederick had amassed and his expertise at growing them on terrain with just a few inches of soil above the chalk. Worthing Borough Council has owned and maintained the gardens free-of-charge to visitors for more than 50 years. The cash injection will enable garden experts to catalogue, preserve and propagate the hundreds of rare species that thrive on the slopes of Highdown Hill. The visitor experience will also be improved, with an old garden bungalow remodelled and turned into a visitor centre, new garden walks installed and a sensory garden developed.
The story of Highdown and its development will also be told: In the 1950s, Sir Frederick wrote important works on peonies, snowdrops and leucojum and his groundbreaking experiences of growing plants in chalky soil. He was knighted for services to horticulture, one of the very few to have the honour, in 1956.
Work on the project will start next year, with completion in 2022. The gardens will remain open for most of the time during the works and will continue to be free to visit in the future.
“I’m so pleased we have won this much-needed funding for our jewel in the crown site,” said councillor Edward Crouch. “Critically, we shall be protecting the horticultural heritage for generations to come, just as Stern wished when he gifted the gardens to the people of Worthing back in 1968.”
For more information visit www.highdowngardens.co.uk.