History

A short history of Bishops Waltham Gardening Club has been written which details the emergence of the Club from the Allotments Association and the Horticultural Society. The booklet is available for purchase, with all proceeds to go to the Chris Smith Memorial Fund.

A small part of the booklet is reproduced below. If you would like a copy of the booklet please email us. An updated (2010) booklet is also available as an A4 pdf printable download. If you wish to download and print a copy, please feel free to do so, but a donation would be appreciated. Please email for details about donating. Thank you.

Bishops Waltham Gardening Club

In 1993 the idea that the Allotment Association and the Horticultural Society should merge was suggested by Ray Crookes and others, notably the late Bert Gee who was a member of the committee of the Horticultural Society and Secretary of the Allotment and Gardens Association. At the time of the proposed merger, Ray Crookes was Chairman of the Bishops Waltham and District Horticultural Society following a Mr Edenbury. A relationship between the two groups was already in operation whereby, for a small fee, members of the Horticultural Society could be associate members of the Allotment Association to enable them to use the facilities at the Albany Road allotments shed. The thinking behind the idea of amalgamation was associated with the perceived need to improve recruitment and getting new blood into the Horticultural Society. There were not enough interested people to merit two such similar organisations – adapt or die!

The Bishops Waltham Gardening Club as such was formed by the formal merger of the Allotments Association and the Horticultural Society at an extraordinary joint meeting on 11 May 1994 and Bob Hills was elected as the first Chairman. The new organisation was renamed in such a way that it was clearly different from either of its predecessors, and that it had been formed by mutual agreement and amalgamation not take over!

Following amalgamation, the Gardening Club membership increased and the programme and activities became more extensive. This was also due to the decision of some long serving committee members to stand down and this enabled new committee members to serve.

The Annual Dinner became a regular feature, as did entry into the Hampshire Federation of Horticultural Societies Quiz and entry initially to the Chelsea Flower Show and lately to the Hampton Court Flower Show as corporate members of the Royal Horticultural Society.

RHS Bronze medal certificate 1997

Bronze medal 1997

Entry for the Hampton Court Flower Show 1998

One significant development has been the entry of the Club’s Annual Show in the Hampshire Federation Competition for Show Quality.

The Gardening Club is a member of  Garden Organic, which is the working name of the Henry Doubleday Research Association (HDRA), the national charity for organic growing. This reflects increasing trends in organic gardening and growing crops without chemicals. Also worthy of note is that fact that at one time significant number of hundredweight sacks of inorganic fertilisers (growmore) used to be sold at the allotment shed with no deliveries of manure. Now very little growmore is sold and some 100 tons of farmyard manure is supplied and delivered by a local farmer.

The venues for meetings for BWGC, BWAGA and BWADHS