Always on
This project successfully funded on 17th October 2025, you can still support them with a donation.
Help Us Open Up Our Dye Garden
Hassocks, East Sussex, United Kingdom
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Aim
Help us transform the Dye Garden at Ditchling Museum of Art +Craft into a beautiful, accessible and sustainable space.
We’re planning a major new phase of work in the garden at Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft - transforming it into a space that’s more accessible, more beautiful and more welcoming to all.
Transforming the Garden
With your help, we’ll create new pathways, seating and planting areas that open up the garden to everyone - from families with buggies and people using wheelchairs, to artists, school groups and neighbours popping in for a coffee and cake.
Creating a Welcoming, Sustainable Space
We’ll install ramps, handrails, wide paths and levelled terraces to make the whole space easier to move through. New gates and fences will improve safety and flow. Fabric awnings will give shade and shelter to schoolchildren during outdoor workshops. Elegant Corten steel planters will showcase dye plants like woad, weld and madder, and a new pond will create a calm, sensory moment in the garden.
There’ll be new benches, more planting, and a circular seat around a newly planted tree - designed to invite rest, reflection and conversation. And to make sure this space stays open and useful long-term, we’ll also install rainwater collection systems, improved screening and more intuitive zoning between the café, the Clore Learning Space and the garden itself.
Help Us Bring the Joanna Bourne Garden to Life
Opening Summer 2026, the space will be renamed the Joanna Bourne Garden, in dedication to the memory of museum co-founder, an expert gardener who’s legacy lives on to this day.
Together, these changes will make the garden a true extension of the museum: a place for learning, making and reconnecting with the natural world.
We’re aiming to raise £15,000 in just 6 weeks - from 5 September to 17 October 2025 - to make it all happen. Everyone who donates will receive an invitation to the opening party, with special rewards available at every level.
What the Project Will Do
- Provide free garden access to everyone during museum opening hours
- Improve access to the garden with a new ramp, level pathways and gentle gradients
- Expand the dye garden with new planting zones and a wider range of traditional dye plants
- Create a flexible outdoor learning space with a retractable awning for shade and shelter
- Install elegant corten steel planters, a pond box and new planting beds for natural dyes
- Add seating throughout the garden, including benches and shaded rest areas
- Replace worn fencing and outdated gates to improve safety and flow
- Restore and re-lay uneven paving to make the space safer and more comfortable underfoot
- Add thoughtful finishing touches, like engraved directional markers, stepping stones and water butts
- Create a more inviting space for visitors to enjoy coffee and cake from the museum café
Add Your Name to the Garden
Artist Christian Funnell will create a series of handmade metal arrows to be set into the garden fence. He will also craft custom gates and metal arrows set into brickwork, each piece uniquely designed to reflect the museum’s character.
With a donation of £100 or more, your name – or the name of someone you’d like to honour – will be engraved on one of these pieces, becoming part of the garden’s story.
Christian has worked in public art for over 35 years, crafting sculptural metalwork that connects people to place through pattern, material and meaning.
Funding method
Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made