Home Page

Friends of Dartmouth Park, West Bromwich

Patron: 10th Earl of Dartmouth

























	Wildlife Photographs




	Webhosting for this site is provided by: HostPapa

index

Latest News

Remembrance Sunday in Dartmouth Park

The Deputy Lieutenant of the West Midlands, Gurpreet Bhatia, attended the event and took the Armed Forces Salute as they left the Park. The Service of Remembrance was led by Rev Philip Thomas and the poem "Lest We Forget" was read by a school girl.

The Park was crowded with people of all ages paying their respects to those who lost there lives in the two world wars and other conflicts.

The Kohima Epitaph

"When you go home
tell them of us and say,
for your tomorrow
we gave our today".

The Beavers from the Blue Ribbon plant
wild daffodils in the Park

The volunteer gardeners enjoyed a morning of training with Miriam on Friday 12 November. Miriam is a highly experienced gardener who made many improvements when she worked in Dartmouth Park for six months.

The Friends Group pay tribute to the members of the
Armed Forces, who have lost their lives in many conflicts across the world, at the rose bed they planted in their honour.

The bed of red roses has looked splendid over the summer months, but looks rather sad in November.

Halloween Event in the Pavilion on Saturday 30 October

Anita Randhawa’s son, Neev, chose to help the environment rather than have a conventional birthday party. His friends joined him today to plant wild daffodil bulbs in the park

Friends organise a pantomine for the children during the half term with the help of the National Lottery.

As you can see from the photographs FunTime Theatre were a great success with the children and the adults.

An autumn day in Dartmouth Park

The Park is looking stunning in it's autumn colours. With the need for more trees to be planted to help the environment we are applying for arboretum status. This will protect the beautiful trees we already have and allow us to plant more trees in the future. Some of the trees in the Park were in situ when this wonderful green space belonged to the Earl of Dartmouth's estate.

New Benches starting to appear in the Park

Today, 5 October, the first of our new benches were installed in the Park.

The Friends have been active in raising funds to replace benches in the Park with sturdier benches which cannot be vandalized. We have also had many members who have paid for new benches. The challenge to replace more benches continues and we are proposing to raise funds by on line Crowd Funding.

Great Day out to Hereford and
The Laskett Garden
on 14 September

Our Summer Fair on the 14 August is a great success

Dartmouth Park was very busy with people enjoying themselves at our Summer Fair. We had entertainment for all age groups and the photographs below give a flavour of the event. A big thank you to everyone who helped on the day to make it such a success.

The ever popular plant stall is well stocked before the Fair opens and Chris, Janet, Raman, and Val are on hand to answer any queries.

Black Rabbit get one couple rock and rolling

Richard, on the left, is representing the Birmingham Commonwealth Games and brought along games to involve the children.

The Dartmouth Park Stall sold out very quickly

Members Christine and Angela purchase birthday cards made by Annette, our Treasurer, who has worked tirelessly organizing this event.

Sue, our former Chair, takes a break with her mother at the book stall.

Some of the photographs above were taken by Seumas Kelly. It was good to see him in the Park again after a long absence.

Our first outing this year was to Powis Castle

Sunn

Stunning weather, fabulous Castle and Grounds, plus of course good food from the cafe - perfect for our first Friends of Dartmouth Park outing this year.
A few photographs below tell the story of the day.

Sandwell Visually Impaired Group check out the new Interpretation Board in the
Sensory Garden

Sandra Troth, Development Worker, and other visually impaired members and helpers, came into the Park on Thursday 27 May to visit the new Interpretation Board in the Sensory Garden which has a braille panel to help them enjoy the garden.

Sandra said the group are looking for local people who might want to walk around the Park with someone blind or visually impaired, or even do other things with them like shopping or visiting places of interest.

Committee members and Volunteer Gardeners joined the group for the unveiling.

The Interpretation Board was financed by Sandwell Council.

Sandra checks out the braille panel with Chris, Jenny, Yvonne, Mike and Selwyn looking on to see whether she finds it useful. Mike and Selwyn have both worked on the stand for the Interpretation Panel to ensure it was in pristine condition.

The sun shone on the Voluteer Gardeners in the Park on Friday 7 May. I had great difficulty getting them to pose as they were more interested in their gardening tasks. Unfortunately two of the gardeners were too far away for me to get them to join in the photoshoot. There were 14 gardeners in total working to make the Park a beautiful place to visit and enjoy.

Honouring the life of the
Duke of Edinburgh
on the day of his funeral

The Federation of Birmingham Ex-Service Association came to the Park on the 17 April to pay their respects to the Duke of Edinburgh.
The photographer was Peter Lloyd

Heart of England Community Foundation’s
The Harry Payne Fund

We are delighted to report that the Heart of England Community Foundation’s The Harry Payne Fund has given us £1,000 towards replacing benches in Dartmouth Park. The Park is very important to our community, particular since the lockdown, and they will love the new benches. It is so important that we get support. It has been impossible to raise funds over the past 12 months and a lot of grants focus on large organisations and not small community organisations like ourselves which are just as important locally.