Memories of the Italian Gardens

Short clips about enjoyable moments

By Liz Warriner

Tulips salvaged from the Kodak beds
Ray Swan
Still in bloom after all these years
Liz Warriner 2015

“We did the rose beds down in the Italian gardens, which is opposite bank court. ”  “The top of one of the rose beds nearest the Moor End Road side – they were shrub roses. Well they have the most wonderful, beautiful scent that you get from a shrub rose – but they look terrible – all “scraggly” and everything”

Ray Swan

Ray describes the rose varieties he replanted in 1983. He goes on to talk about saving tulip bulbs that had been planted in front of the Kodak building to brighten the beds in the Italian Gardens, and how people used to come to Hemel especially to see them.

Jacky Atkins

“there were little houses for the ducks like kennels”              ” a social place as well as a way through to the shops. ”                ” if my mum was with us, she’d always make some comment about… the man (statue). That used to make us laugh.”

Jacky remembers a well organised space where even the ducks had their special place. A lovely facility for people to eat their picnics and a family joke about the discobolus statue.

June Groome

“My mother used to take my two girls  up there , she’d buy them sandwiches and things and they’d sit up there and eat them. It was all roses in the garden.”

This page was added on 02/11/2015.

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