A Monthly Publication

By Peter Davidson

Have you seen the wolf on the cliff top, and the new signpost garden near the lighthouse, and the anchor in Lincoln Square, and the Eric and Ernie garden in the grounds of the Community Centre, the Wash of Dreams garden next to the Coal Shed gallery, and the Brownies garden at the bottom of Westgate, and lots of other new features in our town?  The judges from the Royal Horticultural Society have seen them all, as well as the more established attractions that Hunstanton has to offer such as the delightful Esplanade Gardens, the St Edmund’s Chapel Garden, Boston Square and the town Green amongst many others.

Judging for Anglia-in-Bloom took place at the end of July and although the results will not be known for several weeks, we are cautiously optimistic that a Gold award might just be in the offing as the judges indicated that Hunstanton looked even better than it did last year (when the town just missed a gold award by a couple of points). The omens look good.

In view of the excellent results the town has achieved in the recent past, this year the Royal Horticultural Society invited Hunstanton to compete in the prestigious Britain-in-Bloom competition, and David Littlewood and Sue Wood from the RHS National Judging Panel came to look us over in early August.  Judging day commenced with a 15 minute presentation by the In-Bloom committee outlining the many improvements made to the town over the last four years, and this was followed by a conducted tour of Hunstanton so that the judges could see it all for themselves.

During their tour the judges had the opportunity to informally meet representatives from many of the town’s organisations, including the Mayor and members of the Town and Borough Councils, and members of the Civic Society, Gardeners’ Association, Guides and Brownies, the Allotment Association, the British Legion, the RNLI and many other good folk who have helped towards improving the look of our town.

It goes without saying that the judges were most impressed with the Esplanade Gardens, tended by Jason Wells and his enthusiastic team of gardeners and assisted by volunteers who have ‘adopted’ many of the flower beds, and the photograph shows the judges really getting down to their examination of the floral displays   The new cliff top garden areas were also favourably commented on by the judges, although we’re not quite sure how the odd wolf-whistle might have affected Sue Wood’s judging!

The results of the Britain-in-Bloom UK Finals will be announced at the Award Presentation to be held in Torquay on 23^rd September, and so we’ll have to keep our fingers crossed for another few weeks before learning how we have done on our first attempt in this national competition.  Whatever the results of these competitions, we can all be proud of the magnificent efforts made by our community to improve and benefit from the year-round attractiveness of Hunstanton and its environment.