Being a Friend of St. Mary’s Gardens

What’s Involved?

Being a Friend of St. Mary’s Gardens is a way of helping to preserve a place of beauty for future generations. The group of Volunteers who began helping in the Gardens in 2017 were encouraged by the Parks Department to form an official Friends’ Group as this would enable them to apply for grants for improvements to the Garden. The constitution was approved in September 2019. Our aims are:

To increase awareness of the Gardens.
To help with the maintenance of the Gardens by drawing up with a Community Park Ranger a programme of monthly Working Party meetings. This is notified to the Volunteers who work at the Gardens under the supervision of the Ranger.
To raise funds for improvements through subscriptions, donations and grants.
To erect signs in the Gardens with historical and botanical information and to label trees and shrubs.

How to join

The cost of becoming a member is £5 per annum, payable by cheque or bank transfer. If you are able to copy and print a membership application form to send to our Treasurer with your subscription you will find one by clicking this link:

Join us

Or you can email us at saintmarysgardens@gmail.com with your name and address and we can send you one by post.

Other information

Please note that becoming a Friend does not commit you to join the activities of the Working Parties of Volunteers – although you are very welcome to join them if you would like to. We particularly need your support because when we apply for grants we are always asked to show how far our activities matter to the local community. The size of our membership is one way of demonstrating that.

So far we have been given grant aid by:

The Royal Voluntary Society gave the Friends a grant for the publication of booklets giving information about the history of the old St. Mary’s Church and graveyard and its transformation into St. Mary’s Gardens. And on how to become a Friend and/or Volunteer.
The Welsh Historic Gardens Trust and The Postcode Lottery gave the Friends grants towards the cost of a weather-proof Notice Board for the Gardens’ Gate and for an Interpretation Board which gives visitors historical and botanical information.

If the preservation of the amenities and history of our local area matters to you too, please join us.