The town’s popular Frome Festival event, Hidden Gardens, has raised around £3,300 for local charities, with organisers saying the event has once again ‘exceeded expectations.’
Hundreds of people wandered around the 45 gardens from 12th to 14th July, which were open across the town for people to explore.
Some volunteers who opened their gardens also offered tea and cake to help raise funds for local charities.
“Once again, this year’s Hidden Gardens event exceeded expectations,” says the event organiser Andy Jones, who is also the town’s mayor and a trustee of Frome Festival.
“One of the less obvious benefits of the event is that complete strangers recognise fellow enthusiasts just by sight of our eye-catching programme and start chatting about where they’ve been and what they’ve enjoyed.
“That social interaction is of course lubricated with liberal cups of tea and slices of cake, sold by our volunteer gardeners to benefit their own favourite good causes. This year, this amounted to an additional £3,300 for groups like Fair Frome, Dorothy House, Purple Elephant, among many others.
“I really do thank all those gardeners (and non-gardening partners) who worked so hard to make each visit to their garden special.
“But of course, the primary beneficiary and the main reason I run this event is to support Frome Festival. Somehow, our little town of Frome manages to stage a 10-day festival that engages thousands of people across all age ranges, with over 200 events across more than 40 venues. The revenue from Hidden Gardens programme sales is a major contributor to making that happen.
“This year, you bought over 750 hard copies of the programme, with another 227 people choosing to download a copy from our website. That brought in over £4,500 towards next year’s Frome Festival.
“So, as well as thanking Mercer Design for the design and artwork, and the Cheese and Grain, Hunting Raven, Ellenbray, Discover Frome and Victoria Park Café for selling those programmes, I really do thank every single one of you who bought a programme and came out to enjoy the Hidden Gardens of Frome.”
This popular Frome Festival fixture is happening again next year and will run from 11th to 13th July.
“If you are thinking it might be fun to open your garden as part of the 2025 event, please do get in touch,” says Andy. “If you can persuade some neighbours to join in, that’s even better, as we always find that local clusters of gardens get higher footfall.”
You can find more information and contact details on the dedicated website https://fromefestival.co.uk/hidden-gardens/ .
