Marianne North Centre Hastings - STILL OPEN

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 are looking for 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).

FRLA (frla.co.uk), who have worked with renowned botanic gardens around the world, recommend initial scoping work followed by a written feasibility study (cost £8,250).

Meanwhile, the renowned architects Mizzi Studio (mizzi.co) are offering to create concept designs at cost (£10,000 + VAT).

Local land-based course provider Plumpton College have expressed their desire to become an education partner.

A director of Kew Gardens, home to the Marianne North Gallery, has said that the project would be a"major asset for Hastings".

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 (due to open in Autumn 2025). 

Thanks to the combination of Town Deal funding (£24m, including a fantastic Visitor Centre for Hastings Castle and a major upgrade to the Town Centre) and two other regeneration schemes worth £40m, 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 Hastings Pier and the English Channel, the area between Hastings and St Leonards-on-Sea called White Rock is underused, under-appreciated 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".

Last 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 this February:

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 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.   

Understandably, Hastings Council's current priorities are the cost of living and housing crises - and devolution. However, given the long-term nature of our project, it is important to start considering the options now.   

Our project brings together:

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.

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. 

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 propose scoping work

Creating a botanic garden involves a multiple of factors. Based on their international experience working with clients such as the National Trust and Kew Gardens, FRLA recommend putting together a preliminary feasibility study, narrowing down the choice of sites and working out how the botanic garden will operate.

Renowned architects Mizzi Studio willing to work on concept at cost

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. 

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 1,700 followers - with 1,200 on Facebook.

The project has 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.

Three years ago (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 an 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 this past October (2024) at East Sussex College.

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 have formed a (non-profit) company limited by guarantee called Marianne North Centre Hastings Ltd to progress the project beyond the concept stage, with a total of five local directors.

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.