Saffron Walden Hostel Garden

Chelmsford YHA Group is taking part in the YHA's "Millennium Challenge" - Our project is to create a


	colourful Medieval-style walled cottage garden at Saffron Walden Youth Hostel. The hostel, a 500-year old former maltings, is said to be the oldest building in the town, and anything we can do to help preserve it as a hostel will be well worthwhile.

Part 1 - Planning

It all started on a cold Monday night in February 1999 when Jim, Dave, Ali & Darren visited the hostel for a meeting with Suzanne (the warden), the YHA Regional Development Manager and the Volunteer Co-ordinator, together with two members of Cambridge YHA Group. Darren presented some exciting ideas for the walled garden, with a medieval theme in keeping with the building.

Part 2 - Surveying

Guided by Darren, our very own Alan Titchmarsh, we spent Saturday 6^th March 1999 with our sleeves rolled up surveying the garden at Saffron Walden Youth Hostel.
Andrew, Dave, Jim, Darren and Ali arrived first and started to plan the morning's activities. We started gently enough with a nice cup of tea and some macaroons courtesy of Suzanne, the hostel manager. Then Darren got out his surveying wheels and tape


	measures and the hard work really began! Our first task was to measure the garden and to map out existing features - this is not as easy as it sounds! Luckily we were joined by Peter and Edgar from Cambridge YHA local group, which made the task a lot easier.


	Presently we paused for another cup of tea whilst Suzanne transferred our measurements to an approximate plan. It was at this point (scoffing some doughnuts) that we were joined by Trudi and Chris H. Janet and Chris S turned up shortly afterwards as the last crumb of chocolate doughnut was passing Trudi's lips (much to Janet's disgust).


	We all toured the hostel (especially the gents' toilet which must be the grandest in Essex!) admiring the intricately panelled common room and the gorgeous old beams throughout. The building is rather maze-like and is made up of about four "stages" which means each room seems to be on a different level! By now Jim had transferred


	Suzanne's plans to a master drawing laying out the whole garden, which meant our work for this weekend was nearly finished. Steve and Caroline joined us for some carrot and coriander soup with crusty bread and we spent a very sociable hour swapping news. So a grand total of twelve turned up for our first volunteers day, which is a pretty good turnout. I believe everyone had a really good time, we were certainly lucky with the weather. The real work begins 17^th/18^th April, garden clearance!

For more details of our project at Saffron Walden, please contact Jim Dixon.
For comments on this web page, contact Dave Plummer.