How we Created Therapeutic Garden

The Story of The Duchess of Montrose Memorial Garden

by Agnes Bowie

Whilst attending the Duchess of Montrose’s Memorial service in St Pauls Church, Milngavie, her friend the late May Nicholson, a founder of the Preshal Trust , spoke about the idea of a garden in memory of Cathy alongside the new build they had done together in Govan.

After the memorial service, I was driving home and thinking about it and could not get this calling to help out of my head for two weeks. I contacted another close friend of Cathy and she said “yes let's do it”. Unfortunately, not much later she was taken ill and not able to help.

The site was part of a former shipyard, totally overgrown with trees, scrub vegetation, concrete and broken glass as it was a favoured gathering area of wine drinkers. Friends visited and walked away shaking their heads thinking it was an impossible task.

Some months later I was so glad to be joined by Hermione, new President of the Preshal Trust and daughter of Cathy and the Duke of Montrose. We both agreed that this project would not be done half-heartedly and of paramount importance was to collect the required funds, keeping it all quite separate from the core funding required to run the Charity. 

Over time two main successful fundraisers were held. A golf Am Am and a concert at the home of the Duke of Montrose. Applications and conversations with potential funders continued to be ongoing.

We found an urban garden designer and got the bones of the design for the garden. Unfortunately, the projected costs were way beyond what we had hoped as they included surveyors, security, supervisory fees, and we decided in trepidation to manage the project ourselves.

Volunteers were brought in to cut down the trees and scrub vegetation and two well known large local companies supplied men and machinery to totally clear the site and take away all the debris. This left us with a clear and level site and by then we were in a position financially to employ a hard landscaper.

We went forward, with a huge challenge as not experienced in any way with this type of project, or as gardeners just hoping our hearts were big enough. Our main objective was to create a garden, but it was also necessary to start with security fencing. The garden itself was to have a children’s play area, complying with health and safety, a sensory garden, a vegetable and herb area but also had to be suitable for our Preshal people, some of whom are in wheelchairs. It had to be an inclusive garden for everyone including our local community. 

Our description has always been, with the fencing of BAE Systems next door, that it was like creating a garden in Alcatraz without the sun. Not without our problems as with every project, and we even have our wee fox who comes and sits beside us when we are weeding and wonders why we are in his garden.

The original designer visited last week and perhaps nothing like he envisaged gave a hug and thought it a wonderful therapeutic garden with birds singing and bees and insects buzzing around. Phew!

Going on to finish what we called Stage 2 and even get a new car park was absolutely wonderful.

February 2020

The Duchess of Montrose Memorial Garden was due to be open on 5 July to raise money for Preshal Trust. We encourage you to donate to this charity via our Donations page - please put the name of the garden in the comment box.