A £20 MILLION six-acre garden commemorating Diana, Princess of Wales, is to be part of the largest rose gardens in the world, it was announced yesterday at the Hampton Court Flower Show.
After a public inquiry, the Royal National Rose Society has been given permission to develop a 50-acre greenbelt site at its headquarters at Chiswell Green, near St Albans, Hertfordshire. Work will begin this year and the gardens are scheduled to open in 2003.
The Diana Memorial Rose Garden will be one of the largest public memorials to the Princess and has been designed by David Stevens to feature a 95ft spire covered in gilded lead and set in a 45ft-wide rock imported from China.
Water will tumble down the spire and rock into a series of pools. On the garden wall, bronze plaques designed by international artists will commemorate scenes from the Princess’s life. The garden will incorporate play areas for children, with granite spheres rotating on jets of water.
Professor Stevens said: “The spire is the hope and faith the Princess represented, the rock is her solidity, her international work will be represented by the artists contributing, and it will be a garden for everybody, both adults and children.”
Ken Grapes, the society’s director-general, said: “This will be the people’s garden for the people’s Princess and will be a fitting and lasting tribute to England’s rose.”
Two other gardens to be included in the development of the site, a south-facing slope that is at present used as farmland, will honour the Queen’s Golden Jubilee and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother’s centenary.
Professor Stevens’s design for the Queen’s jubilee garden includes a tumble of rose beds surrounded by water cascading down a 600ft slope to a lake with fountains. Professor Stevens describes it as “a comfortable, homely setting”.
The Queen Mother’s centenary garden, he says, is traditional in design with climbing roses, honeysuckle and other scented plants adorning the largest pergola in Britain. The 1,000ft-long pergola will be set with three Art Deco style bronze bowls spilling water into three pools, surrounded by raised beds planted with roses and mixed flowers.
Funding for the gardens will come principally from corporate sponsorship and private donations. The development will include educational and training facilities, cafés and walkways.
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Royal school place for 'homeless' girl (UK Times)
BY A CORRESPONDENT
A TALENTED foster child is preparing to become homeless in an attempt to escape council bureaucracy and become eligible for a place at Gordonstoun School.
Suzanne Turley, 16, from Wrexham, North Wales, is intent on pursuing a theatrical career and dreams of running her own theatre.
After months of research she discovered that the best school to advance her career at sixth-form level was the school that has taught three generations of royal children, including the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of Wales and Prince Edward.
Suzanne passed the entrance examination well and was offered a place. But Gordonstoun is in northeast Scotland, 500 miles from her home, and the boarding fees are £15,000 a year.
Her paternal grandparents have offered their savings of £20,000 towards the two-year course, but Wrexham’s social services department has refused to help with the balance and says that she must attend her local college instead.
Despite several attempts to have the decision reversed, Suzanne says the only option open to her is to take herself out of council care and effectively become homeless. Gordonstoun has indicated that it would support any action she takes to gain entry, including becoming homeless.
Without an income, she will have to beg a bed from her grandparents and friends during the long school holidays, and letters will have to be sent to her care of the school.
Suzanne said yesterday: “Since I had the offer of the place last year I have been working hard to get good GCSE grades. Now at the last minute the council have told me I will have to go to the local college. I understood that the director of social services was supposed to act as a sort of parent. Stopping me achieving my full potential is a complete abandonment of that role.”
Malcolm Russell, Wrexham’s director of personal and social services, refused to discuss the girl’s affairs in public.