Discovery Trail – Charlton and Blackheath Amateur Horticultural Society

Horn Fair 2024

It wasn’t all that “fair” this year, in fact it was fairly wet, but we had such a great day! So many volunteers and visitors turned out to support this traditional event, thank you so much everyone. As well as a huge number of plants for sale, we also had fun with the Gargoyle Trail in the Gardens, which were specially dressed up and Haunted for the day!

Inside Charlton House there were lots of craft and artisan stalls, Frilly’s was open and there were food stalls on the back lawn. The Heritage Hub featured the Ottoman stone and some interesting watercolours of Charlton House over the years. Local community groups had stalls in the Grand Salon and St Luke’s was open for tower tours. Spotlight Dance group and the Morris Dancers were on show as well.

The Morning volunteers setting up the stalls — The Morning Volunteers

Selling frenzy in the Peace GArden — The Morning Volunteers

The gardens looked beautifully Autumnal and we had over 85 children and their families charging about looking for bats, gargoyles, pumpkins and spiders!

Highlight of the day was the Splat the Slug game, all ages had a go!

May Plant Sales 2024

May is the month for plant sales! We held two this year, our big annual one was held at Charlton House on Saturday May 18th, along with the Blackheath & Greenwich WI and a select group of other market stalls. The plants were all set out in the Peace Garden which is not only a lovely setting but also meant we didn’t have to carry them too far! Visitors started queueing outside the gates before we opened at 10, aiming for a bargain and a bit of horticultural conversation.

People buying plants — Peace Garden 10.05 am

Queue to buy plants — Peace Garden 10.05 am

Our plants had mostly sold out by 12.30, which was a bit sad for latecomers. But volunteers were on hand to chat about the gardens and Stella presented her findings about the history of the garden in the Old Library.

We also had a “Bugs in the Beds” trail for the little ones and Frilly’s was open all day.

Charlton House Horn Fair 2023

Once again we ran a successful plant stall at this lovely family event, huge thank you to everyone who donated plants or came along to help. And it was sunny, hooray, even if it was perishing in the shade!

Charlton House and stalls — Producers market

We had a great time dressing up the Gardens with ghosts, bats, spiders etc to make them ‘haunted’, and devising the children’s Pumpkin Trail. In the end we had over 130 children charging about the gardens, doing the Pumpkin Puzzle to find the name of the Charlton House ghost, or just spotting all the silly things we had put in the beds!

The gardens were looking peaceful first thing…

Painting the pumpkins — Setting up the puzzle

Webs in the beds — Setting up the puzzle

Preparations underway. And then it got busy..!

Plant Sale and Community Day 2023

THANK YOU to everyone who supported our Plant Sale and Community Day on May 21st at Charlton House. Whether you donated plants or bought them, you are all heroes! Your generosity will help the Greenwich & Bexley Community Hospice, the Walled Gardens and our speaker programme, with many thanks!

OPG in morning light — The garden first thing, looking beautiful and calm..

Set up started early, we had sooo many plants to get out to the Back Lawn, and all the tables to position according to Mandy’s Grand Plan.

11 am rolled around quickly and the selling started..

Selling plants — I’ll have that one, and that one, and

We shared the day with lots of community groups as well as stalls from the Producers Market and everyone had a great time networking and selling their wares.

Plant Sale and Community Day at Charlton House on Sunday May 22nd

Thank you to everyone who came to our Plant Sale and Community Day at Charlton House on Sunday May 22^nd, what a fabulous day, sunny and successful! Plants were either donated by members or grown on by the Volunteers in the Old Pond Garden. We were slightly staggered by how popular our plants were, and we had pretty well sold out by 1pm, which was amazing. Everyone was very generous, either buying plants or donating for our home made lavender bags, or the Discovery Trail.

Our Community event was shared with Charlton Community Garden, who ran the “Pot up a plant” stall, Blackheath Flower Arranging club, Friends of Greenwich Park, The Charlton Society, Montessori Moments, Greenwich Music School and the Charlton Toy Library. And of course the Greenwich & Blackheath WI cake stall.

We were very pleased to be part of the Trusts “Sustainability Sunday”, it was certainly lively and great to see so much going on. The Producers Market was on the Front Lawn, there were tours of the House, talks about Heritage and garden tours with our very own Head Gardener, Jason Sylvan. Frilly’s café was open and the Old Library had items from the Greenwich Archive on display as well as installations by local artists Fiona Veacock and CraftA, and other childrens activities.

Funds raised from plant sales will go to the Greenwich & Bexley Community Hospice, our Speaker programme and the Walled Gardens revival. Thank you all!