Pump House Cottage Garden

As part of celebrating 10 years of the Friends of Hemingfield Colliery in 2024, we will be sharing more of the history of the group as well as celebrating the transformational efforts of its members. What follows is the story of the rebirth of Pump House Cottage garden, achieved and sustained thanks to the efforts of volunteers on site, and to Jeff and Janet Petch in particular, to whom we are indebted for the following account.

Pump House Cottage

Following a successful bid to the National Lottery Heritage Fund in 2018, Pump House Cottage finally came into the hands of the Friends of Hemingfield Colliery in 2019. Along with it came the overgrown and neglected space which had previously formed a garden to this private house, converted from a engine house for a Cornish pumping engine of some 130HP which had lifted water from 156 yards below from around 1843 until c.1920.

Pre-history

First, some earlier glimpses. In August 1991 Steve Grudgings, who later became the founding Chairman of the Friends of Hemingfield Colliery, visited the Hemingfield pumping station and took some interesting images of the site, including a glimpse of the house, then a private residence. Russian vine covered much of the building, and its old wooden window frames peeked through before their later uPVC replacements appeared.

Detail of Pump House cottage, August 1991 (Photo credit Steve Grudgings)

Jumping forward almost 25 years – we see an aerial view from March 2016, early spring. It shows Pump House Cottage, separated from the former pumping station by the dense privet hedge, but before greenery has completely overtaken the house once more.

Aerial view of Pump House Cottage – 19th March 2016 (Credit: James Marshall)

By 2017, the garden in Pump House Cottage was beginning to look a little wild. The last tenant departed in that year and no further residents were to follow – unsurprising given the delapidation and water ingress in the house itself.

View of Pump House Cottage, 21st January 2017

Viewed from the pumping station side, the two cherry trees peek over the the privet. Brick rubble from the demolished former boundary wall, brambles and dense undergrowth cover the foreground – the two sites of the old colliery remain physically divided.

Aerial view of garden just over the hedge, 21st January 2017

Pre-emptive strikes

During this period, with Pump House Cottage empty, the Friends negotiated to do some limited improvement works – to take down the overgrown hedge, to keep the garden more tidy. On Saturday and Sunday 16-17th September 2017 junior soldiers from Waterloo Company, of the Army Foundation College at Harrogate provided many hands to make light work of the privet hedge.

Junior soldiers from Waterloo Company, AFC, 16th September 2017

30th September 2017- hedge cut down to size

After ‘opening up’ views of Pump House cottage, other activities on site (excavation, levelling and tidying elsewhere) took attention away from this area for a while in 2018 as proposals were made to acquire Pump House Cottage and ‘reunify’ the colliery site.

Clearing the way

In April 2019, with the completion of the purchase of Pump House cottage approaching, work could really start on the garden proper. Starting from scratch, this is what we saw:

Shed-ding the old, to make way for the new, 27th April 2019

FoHC Chair Steve and Site Manager Glen surveying the challenges ahead 25th May 2019

A period of stump removal then followed, with our resident root-extirpation expert John keen to dig, hack, lever and finally winch out the remnants:

Winching away, privet stump removal, 22nd June 2019

3rd August 2019 – fence blocking view and wall collapsing where privet stumps once were

3rd August 2019 – fence gone, wall being repaired

Pandemic pauses

2020 began so well. Winter was the perfect time to cut back the two large cherry trees to open up the area around the front boundary wall.

Cherry tree chopping – 18th January 2020

But then, the Covid-19 global pandemic stepped in, and for a while things ground to a halt, at least until 2021.

New beginnings

At the end of 2021 3 main areas of the garden were cleared of weeds and some new planting carried out – the first for very many years.

18th December 2021 – old edging cleared, new planting going in.

Week in and week out, the tireless efforts of volunteers to weed and maintain the developing garden become a weekly activity through all seasons – the most intense activity on site at any time since the Friends first secured the colliery in 2014.

15th January 2022 – Volunteer Janet removing some of the many weeds

Start of the new paths with volunteers Jeff and Paul, laid out and constructed using hand made bricks from the site, 28th May 2022

Garden is divided into 3 areas. 1 path finished, 1 to be completed and footings dug for path to memorial bench – 2nd July 2022

30th July 2022 – additional planting and extending the path

30th July 2022 – Jeff laying the brick path

Janet and Jeff at work transforming the garden – 10th September 2022

Finishing the pathways – 26th November 2022

First winter in the newly paved garden – 17th December 2022

Planting

Zooming in, from the design and shape of the new garden, to the content – the plants and planting.

Cherry Tree covered in ivy. Blackcurrant bush on back wall – 1st May 2023

Start of a herb garden with Golden Sage, Sorrel, Chives, Garlic Chives, Lemon Thyme and Golden Majoram, 1st May 2023

Sundial with plaque and bird bath kindly donated by volunteer Mitchell Sutherland’s grandmother – 1st May 2023

Memorial bench donated by Paul Rodgers, 1st May 2023

Heathers	Shrubs	Perennials	Ground cover
Erica Summer Gold	Azalea	Bergenia	Various
Erica Eva Gold	Hebe Sutherlandii	Hellebores
	Rambling Rose American Pillar	Heuchera Palace Purple
	Honeysuckle Red World	Campaula Alba
	Cotoneaster	Phlox Mount Fugi
		Leucanthemum
		Penstemon
		Aquilegia
		Sedum