Published: Wednesday, 28th July, 2010 9:30am

Aberdour unveils plans for sensory garden

Comments (1) | Print | Email

ABERDOUR will soon be bursting with colour with plans to spend around £60,000 on a sensory garden and a nautical floral display.

A boat sculpture with plants growing in and around should be erected at the west entrance to the village, near the roundabout, to welcome visitors to the village.

But the bigger project will see the creation of a relaxing oasis in the centre of Aberdour with 2000 plants and trees, three model seals and a water feature.

Village in Bloom, a sub-committee of the community council, are behind both the plans and garden planner Jane Halleran hopes they'll blossom over the next few months.

She explained, "The sensory garden is where the old school and headmaster's house was, in the heart of the village in Station Place.

"They were closed and demolished in the late 1960s / early 1970s and there was a park there but no-one ever used it. It was just a sad wee place."

Jane continued, "The sensory garden will enable people with a sensory loss or difficulty to enjoy the garden.

"It will have a nice seating area with a water feature and sculptures of three seals while the boys at Hillside School are doing a mosaic for the walls.

"We're hoping to get help from Carnegie College with the signage as we want to produce signs people can feel rather than just read."

Landscaping should begin at the end of the month with planting to follow.

Award-winning landscape architect, Anthony Bloomfield, is involved and villagers have the chance to put their signature, or at least their name, to the work through buying a brick for the garden.

Jane said, "We're still a couple of thousand pounds short so we'll continue the fundraising while people can also sponsor a bench or tree.

"The total cost is nearly £60,000 but around half of that is 'in kind', given by people in the village.

"A local company has put in water for the water feature, a farmer has been digging out the paths and a builder is putting in four pillars.

"Fife Council is putting in four pergolas and then you have all the people giving up their own time for free to do the planting."

A planning application has been submitted for the boat sculpture project, which should cost around £1200 in total. Jane said, "It's going to be near the roundabout as you come into the village and a local farmer has generously gifted the land for a permanent structure.

"The boat sculpture will be made of metal and the design is based on a wee model boat that was in the window of the Heart's Desire shop in the village.

"It will be the skeleton of a boat - 14 feet long and 12 feet high - with sedum, a scree garden and plants will grow through it and creepers wind round the mast.

"One of the local guys in the village, Brian Kelly, is kindly going to make it for us and I think he'll be starting in September."

l A new interpretation panel, describing the wonderful view from the east of Aberdour across the Forth to Edinburgh and the Lothians, has been unveiled.

It's been placed in a layby at the A921 and marks the completion of the essential repairs to the Mains Brae by Fife Council.

The community council had campaigned for years to see an interpretation of the view and money was found by Fife Council's locality manager Lynn Hoey. Councillor Alice McGarry said, "This is an excellent example of local budgets being spent on what local communities want."