The Butterfly Garden

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The Butterfly Garden is a charitable project for students dealing with disability of any kind, without prejudice and regardless of age.

The project started life as a simple garden, but now extends across four acres, has two classrooms and substantial greenhouse space. With the expansion has come diversification and it offers a variety of activities including on certain days, woodwork, art and cookery. It has also made a big commitment to recycling.

 The Butterfly Garden is entirely volunteer lead, is a fully registered charity and a member of Thrive, the horticultural therapy charity.

 The Gardens:

The project boasts two acres of garden, offering access to ornamental, fruit and vegetable and wild spaces. There is opportunity to use the spaces recreationally but also we encourage visitors to join in with the maintenance. Some even grow things for their own use.

 Recycling:

We hold licences for recycling and involve ourselves with very diverse reprocessing of a wide range of material. Many of our visitors enjoy this activity.

 Arts and Crafts:

We have created a dedicated arts and craft room, which is available for all visitors to use. We have a good range of basic art material as well as some craft equipment. This area does not have a dedicated support volunteer, but still gets well used. We also do machine knitting, patchwork and sewing classes that take place on a Thursday, these have become very popular indeed.

 The Woodwork Shop:

We have two volunteer woodworkers, the support of Messier Dowty in providing us with recycled timber and some very keen students. We also have some useful equipment including a lathe.

Our group have been making bird boxes, exploring simple furniture construction and wood turning.

 The Music Room:

We have a portacabin which is used as a music room and now boast an extensive collection of instruments including guitars and drum kits. We have sound recording equipment and a Karaoke machine and currently have help from a music volunteer one day a week, we continue to look at strengthening this provision.

 Drama:

Our drama group meet every Wednesday afternoon and performs for us at the end of each term. The group also take part in regional competition.

 Cookery:

We are now cooking four times each week and our cookery ranges from simple baking to the preparation of a full meal. On Thursdays we gather to prepare and eat a full dinner and pudding together.