HENLEY was described as “delightful” by a judge who visited the town as part of a national horticultural competition.
Two judges from Britain in Bloom were given a tour of the town’s horticultural highlights last Friday.
The competition, run by the Royal Horticultural Society, gives awards to community gardening schemes and environmental initiatives in towns and villages across the UK.
It is the first time Henley has entered since 2019. Previously, the town had won seven golds in the Thames and Chilterns regional competition in eight years.
Julie Graham and Paul Cooper marked the town against criteria set out by the Royal Horticultural Society, and the results will be made public this autumn.
They were greeted at Henley Bowls club in Mill Meadows at 10am by member Kevin Browne and the town’s Bloom committee and were shown around the adventure golf course, sensory garden, adventure playground and rotary beds.
The group was then driven to Norman Avenue where it visited Holy Trinity Church. They met Sally Rankin, of the Greener Henley Wildlife Group, and the council’s biodiversity officer Katrina Judge to talk about the rewilding of the churchyard.
Next, they saw the work of students at The Henley College, which included the mural on Deanfield Avenue before visiting the community orchard on Paradise Road.
The group then inspected the flowerbed outside the fire station in West Street, which is maintained by the Gardening Buddies volunteer group.
The judges were then met by town centre manager Paul Carey and the council’s communications manager Daisy Smith in Market Place alongside Geoff Luckett, of the Henley Society, and town councillor Sara Kandiah to talk about a number of community events and cleaning projects.
After visiting Northfield End and Red Lion Lawn in Thames Side, the judges were picked up by boat by Councillor Rory Hunt and driven to Marsh Meadows and the River & Rowing Museum, where the tour finished.
The judges were also given a brochure, which outlined additional information that could not be fitted into the tour.
Ms Graham said while she couldn’t give too much away, she appreciated all the effort that had gone into arranging the tour, adding she had seen a “very wide range of activities”.
She said: “You can understand why it’s not just a place that people want to come because of the royal regatta. It’s just a delightful place to come.
“What is also evident is the amount of planning that goes into what we’ve seen. It doesn’t happen by chance.”
Ms Graham explained that the three core principles of the judging criteria are horticulture, the environment and the community. In recent years, the weighting of horticulture has been reduced from 50 per cent to 40 per cent.
She said: “So much more emphasis has been placed on the environment and on sustainability and the involvement of the community. I think that’s reflected in what we’ve seen around Henley today.
“There’s a lot of thought that has gone into it and sponsorship, so thank you to all the businesses, to the individuals, all the people who have donated because you can see the evidence of what’s been achieved as a result.”
Mr Cooper said: “From the fantastic gardens we have seen right through the town to the fantastic wild area in Marsh Meadows, it’s in the whole, not one particular thing stands out. They all have equal parts to them. Co-ordinating all those individual groups and people must be a hell of a job.”
Assistant parks manager Kyle Dowling said that in the run-up to the judges’ visit, the parks department, which comprises eight full-time staff and two seasonal workers, had been “flat out”.
He said: “We are so grateful for all the volunteer groups and all the organisations that help us out and maintain our open spaces. Just all across the board, everyone’s worked really hard to try and get us up to this stage.”
Mrs Rankin, who set up the town’s wildlife group in 1993, said the judges were “very impressed” to see a natural green area such as Marsh Meadows in a built-up area.
Following the rewilding efforts southern marsh orchids were spotted in Marsh Meadows for the first time in 27 years in 2023, and they have returned in the years since.
Mrs Rankin said: “I like to think it is because we have been managing the area naturally for 35 years, it’s proved the right environment for them to flourish again.”
Town clerk Sheridan Jacklin-Edward said there had been more than 150 items to try and pack into the two-and-a-half-hour-long tour.
He added: “Henley, for its size, really does punch above its weight. We have a really proactive group of councillors and a community that is ready to get stuck in, which is really fantastic.”
Councillor Kellie Hinton, who chairs Henley in Bloom, said that the time away from the competition had allowed the town to return with a higher level of sponsorship and better present the work of lots of different community groups.