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Marianne North Centre Hastings - Conditional Site!
Hastings, East Sussex, United Kingdom
Aim
Initial £2,500 to develop a community-centred Marianne North Centre in Hastings, the artist's birthplace - with an extra £2,500 matchfunded
Panorama of White Rock and Bohemia, Hastings, possible site for a Hastings Botanic Garden honouring local artist and eco-visionary Marianne North
Courtesy: South East Photography
Summary
We set up this Crowdfunder in 2022 to raise an initial £2,500 towards consultant costs and architectural concept designs for a landmark botanic garden in Hastings, honouring local artist and eco-visionary Marianne North (1830-1890) -with another £2,500 to come from matchfunding.
In an exciting development, Hastings Borough Council invited us in mid-August 2026 to submit a fully costed garden proposal for their consideration. We have, therefore, asked FRLA (frla.co.uk), who have worked with renowned botanic gardens around the world and at Chequers, the Prime Minister's residence, to draw up a concept garden design. Their fee is £13,000, so we have applied for £13,000 local Pride in Place capacity funding (decision expected mid-October 2026).
Meanwhile, the renowned architects Mizzi Studio (mizzi.co), whose latest project is the stunning Carbon Garden at Kew, remain interested in creating concept designs for a full-scale Marianne North Centre. A director of Kew Gardens, home to the Marianne North Gallery, has said that the project would be a"major asset for Hastings".
We are also in touch with the consulting arm of Eden Project and a business planning consultant, which has already worked on Hastings Castle.
Fully aware that the Pride in Place funding scheme was heavily oversubscribed, we have reached out to alternative sources of funding. We have also received an unsolicited offer of collaboration with a local mental health charity.
The fact that the Council has invited us to submit a proposal is a major step forward.
As we await the outcome of the Pride in Place application, please follow our social media for updates:
Instagram: Hastings.Botanic.Garden
Facebook: Marianne North Centre
Considerable regeneration and wellbeing benefits from a landmark botanic garden
The economy of Hastings is highly seasonal. It needs to develop year-round, quality attractions to attract long-stay, higher-spending visitors, such as the guests at the new town centre Premier Inn (which opened in December 2025).
Thanks to Town Deal funding (£24m, including a fantastic Visitor Centre for Hastings Castle and a major upgrade to the Town Centre) and the £20m Pride in Place funding (spread over 10 years), the town now has a once in a hundred years opportunity to improve its housing, health and cultural facilities.
Despite its glorious and uplifting location overlooking the Pier and the English Channel, the area between Hastings and St Leonards-on-Sea called White Rock - believed to be the original site of Hastings - is underused, dilapidated and little visited (especially during the Winter). Together with the area to the North, Bohemia, access is poor.
A landmark Marianne North visitor centre cum botanical garden, whether at the South end or near the Museum in Bohemia, would open up the area, providing a year-round educational facility - and family attraction for the local community as well as tourists, reinforcing Hastings’ eco-tourism credentials. It would create multiple collaborative links with local organisations such as East Sussex College, Plumpton College and local charities -and provide education and training for local young people.
Other possible sites include Station Approach, which is sorely in need of a facelift, such as Sheffield’s Winter Garden provided the Northern powerhouse.
An economic impact assessment (by Destinations Research, a leading tourism consultancy) calculates that such a facility would support 50 jobs either directly, or in the immediate area. This would help counter the brain drain from Hastings to other economic centres - and provide all-year round employment.
Global Reach
Marianne North's work is loved by people all over the world, as witnessed by a series of articles in recent years.
In January 2023, the celebrated US essayist Maria Popova (1.2m online readers) featured her: https://www.themarginalian.org/2023/01/23/marianne-north/. When we informed her of our plans, she immediately responded: "wonderful project".
In December 2024, a journalist in India, the world’s future economic superpower, wrote a well researched article for a respected weekly magazine:
https://www.theweek.in/voices/columns/brijeshwari-gohil/2024/12/13/botanical-marvels-and-taj-mahal-tales.html
There was even a reference to Marianne North in the China Daily in February 2025:
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202502/28/WS67c17827a310c240449d7e33_1.html
Domestically, Marianne North was celebrated in the Women in Horticulture section of the RHS Chelsea Show in May 2023 and profiled by Country Life that Autumn.
Such wide international recognition and goodwill represents an untapped source of tourist income for Hastings.
Financial Viability is Key
Having consulted other botanical gardens in the UK, events (weddings etc) and a strong retail offering are vital to establishing a financially viable attraction - as is the establishment of a reserve to cover unforeseen events. According to the National Botanical Garden of Wales (a Millennium Project which opened 20 years ago), the ideal ratio between public and own generated funding is 1:3.
The uncertainty over the fate of local government reorganisation is obviously unwelcome - but with the spotlight falling on Hastings in "The Year of the Normans", this provides an unrivalled opportunity to press ahead with our project.
Our project brings together two important anniversaries:
Marianne North's birth bicentenary in 2030
Marianne North was one of the most famous female artists of the 19th century. Before colour photography and mass tourism, she travelled the world painting exotic plants and introduced never-before-seen flora to the Victorian public to great acclaim (including the giant pitcher plant featured on our logo). At the same time, she was a pioneer, warning of the dangers of habitat loss and extinction. Born in 1830, Marianne North merits a permanent memorial in her birthplace Hastings: her art and message have even greater relevance today.
Little Known Exhibition in Hastings in 1878
Recently, we have discovered that there was an exhibition in 1878 of her works (then numbering 500) at Hastings & St Leonards School of Art, in today’s public library. Curiously, this is not mentioned in any of the standard books about Marianne North These pictures had been exhibited at the forerunner of the V&A, the South Kensington Museum, while she was in India.
Proposals for a Winter Garden in Hastings since 1870’s
The opening of a Winter Garden in 1875 in Eastbourne led to newspaper articles campaigning for one in Hastings. Indeed, the Southern end of White Rock opposite the Pier (then called White Rock Meadow) was sold to Hastings Borough Corporation in 1903 on the condition that “it shall be used solely as a site for Municipal Buildings Winter Garden and Recreation Grounds”. Four bowling greens and a pavilion were built - but no Winter Garden.
Meanwhile, a design for a Winter Garden opposite Warrior Square appeared in a special supplement of the Hastings and St Leonards Observer dated May 1904 and a Scheme of Improvement dated 1913 would have put a huge winter garden opposite Hastings Pier (on the site of the theatre today).
A tropical greenhouse and other facilities recur in recent consultations and master plans which envisage re-purposing the areas to the West and East of Falaise Road.
Botanic garden consultants FRLA will work on concept development
Following the surprise offer of a possible site, FRLA will focus on concept developent and community engagement (full proposal available on request).
Renowned architects Mizzi Studio remain willing to work on design
With a portfolio that includes the distinctive kiosks in the Royal Parks of London and two projects at Kew - the playful and vibrant Family Kitchen and the landmark Carbon Garden - Mizzi Studio is the perfect design practice to put together a concept design for a Marianne North Centre here. Jonathan Mizzi and his colleagues visited Hastings in February 2022, meeting with senior members of the Council such as Paul Barnett, Julia Hilton and local councillors Judy Rogers and Claire Carr. They also hosted a return visit to Kew in mid-October. They are so impressed by the potential for creating a landmark community asset that they have offered to produce the concept design at cost (see poster below).
Local Community Support
Since mooting this idea in Hastings Online Times in July 2021 (see https://hastingsonlinetimes.co.uk/hastings-life/green-times/a-covered-botanic-garden-for-hastings), the Instagram page for Hastings Botanic Garden has grown to nearly 2,500 followers - with 1,400 on Facebook (a separate account promotes our annual garden festival).
The project received initial funding from Making It Happen (administered by Hastings Voluntary Action) because it is based in Castle Ward, Hastings, which includes the White Rock area and is also the home to the founder, Alexander Wilberforce.
During academic year 2021-2022, a class of computer design students at the Hastings Campus of East Sussex College worked on visualising a botanic garden here as a work experience project: their work was displayed at a beautiful exhibition on June 5th 2022 in Alexandra Park, as part of the Jubilee Picnic, which was visited by hundreds of local residents.
In Summer 2023, our inaugural Hastings Garden Festival took place on Father's Day (https://www.sussexexpress.co.uk/news/people/in-pictures-hastings-garden-festival-4189276) attracting 750 advance bookings and nearly £1000 worth of raffle prizes from local businesses. A similar event took place last Summer next to the Falaise Indoor Bowls Club.
Our second Marianne North Celebration - sponsored by Eden Project Communities - again filled the Seafront Room at the White Rock Hotel - and we were honoured to receive a lecture by bumblebee and insect specialist Professor Dave Goulson in October 2024 at East Sussex College.
September 2025 saw our "Back to Brazil with Marianne North" event at Hastings Museum and Art Gallery which attracted 700 attendees. We were honoured to welcome NatGeo explorer and Peruvian Amazon expert Dr Rosa Vasquez Espinoza to give the keynote address - in the presence of the Lord Lieutenant of East Sussex and a great great niece of Marianne North.
Most recently, we won the Expression of Interest bidding process to put on the Midsummer Festival this July 25th, with part funding from the Council. As one aim of this event was to draw as wide as possible a demographic to White Rock as possible, we arranged for Head on Board CIC to hold a skate jam at the same time. An estimated 500 people attended both locations.
Team
Local resident Alexander Wilberforce has led the project, with input from experts, both in Hastings and further afield. He has consulted Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI), the world body for botanic gardens, as well as sought the advice of or met the following botanical gardens in the UK - Kew, Chelsea, Oxford, Wales, and Edinburgh - especially regarding financial viability (he still works as a financial analyst). Thus, the project's pitcher plant logo alludes to various income sources such as events and a cafe - as well as the importance of making the facility somewhere that children would like to revisit.
On the advice of HVA, we formed a (non-profit) company limited by guarantee called Marianne North Centre Hastings Ltd in February 2024 to progress the project beyond the concept stage.
New priorities post-COVID
In a world grappling with climate change, habitat loss and extinction, Marianne North continues to speak to us today.
The Covid pandemic forced us all to reconsider the way we live: we need to develop a world in harmony with Nature. Now, as life returns to normal, Hastings has an opportunity to become a trailblazer, with the community at the core.
Become a friend of this exciting new community!
Feedback and offers of support are welcome at: [email protected]
For more background on why Marianne North is so special, please see:
https://www.hastingsindependentpress.co.uk/features/i-am-a-very-wild-bird-and-like-liberty-marianne-north-1820-1890/
Or watch excerpts of “The Remarkable Miss North” at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nALt1P7UtU (DVD available from Kew Gardens)
Latest media coverage:
https://hastingsonlinetimes.co.uk/hastings-life/nature/marianne-north-botanic-garden
https://www.themarginalian.org/2023/01/23/marianne-north/
https://hastingsonlinetimes.co.uk/arts-culture/festivals/inaugural-hastings-garden-festival
https://www.sussexexpress.co.uk/news/people/in-pictures-hastings-garden-festival-4189276
https://www.theweek.in/voices/columns/brijeshwari-gohil/2024/12/13/botanical-marvels-and-taj-mahal-tales.html
For information on FRLA and its impressive portfolio, see:
https://www.frla.co.uk/
For Mizzi Studio's latest project, the forthcoming Carbon Garden at Kew:
https://www2.richmond.gov.uk/lbrplanning/Planning_CASENO.aspx?strCASENO=23/3086/FUL&DocTypeID=4#docs
Thank you very much.
Funding method
Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made