Ecclesfield in Bloom

Promoting Ecclesfield Village's entry into Yorkshire-in-Bloom

7 February 2012

(Tuesday) 19:00 Everybody is invited to our meeting in "The Stocks". We will be preparing for our entry into Yorkshire-in-Bloom 2012.

Autmn 2011

If you live near the centre of Ecclesfield, then you may have received a copy of autumn newsletter. If not, you can always download and see or print a copy by clicking on the picture on the left.

Updates

- We have helped with the Christmas tree in St. Mary's Church yard, and it is now up and lit.
- our Christmas fair on 26th was a huge success raising a fantastic £662.66. Everyone had a great time, so we are going to looking for next year's unwnted Christmas decorations, starting in January 2012.
- We have put in a bid for funding to re-do "The Square".

Survey results, 2011

The citizenship survey¬ says that 25% of people in England volunteer at least once a month.

20 Sept 2011

.
Yorkshire in Bloom gave a "Silver Rose" award for Ecclesfield Village in the Spring and a further "Silver Rose" in the Summer. The Stocks also entered in its own right, and was also awarded a "Silver Rose". Click here for Village Results¬, Stocks¬, or Commentary¬

26 November 2011

(Saturday) 10:00 Last year's "Coffee and Mince Pie Morning" or "Christmas Fair" was enjoyed so much by both helpers and visitors that we are in process of organising another one. It will be held on Saturday 26th of November, between 10am and 12:30, inside St. Mary's Church. We are having stalls for Cards, Christmas Decorations, Handbags/Jewellery and Bric-a Brac, there will also be a raffle and we will be selling tea/coffee and cakes. We still need more offers of Christmas decorations and bric-a-brac to sell. We have also decided to try a 'Handbag/Christmas Gift Stall' this year so if anyone would like to donate any handbags that they no longer use or any unused/unwanted gifts, that would be great. All proceeds will go to next year's Ecclesfield-in-bloom.

We are pleased to list our 2011 sponsors as follows...

St. Mary's Lane Trust
M.E.P.S. (Europe) Ltd.,
A.I.S. Assured Insurance Solutions Ltd.,
Dave Radford – Traditional Butcher,
Tracy’s – Dressmaking Alterations,
Carter Smith – Accountants.
We also thank JB and AF for their support including baking cakes for our Coffee Morning; and the Rhinegold Garden Centre for the plants and planters they supplied.

Yorkshire in Bloom have emailed to say that they are holding an amateur photography competition. Click on the camera opposite for details,

OF INTEREST

Members and others may want to visit, or perhaps contribute to, the Open Gardens Movement¬

PAST EVENTS

News release 19 July 2011

“Blooming Lovely”

July is a time of year when floral displays tend to look their best and this year was no exception. No-one walking through Ecclesfield to St. Mary’s Church could fail to notice a feast of colour, whether it was Ladycroft Meadow with its wild flowers or the planters up and down Church Street, the tendered gardens of St. Mary’s Church or the many displays of potted plants outside Villagers homes all adding to a supreme effort. This was good because on the 15^th. July, Ecclesfield was judged by the Royal Horticultural Society judges of Yorkshire in Bloom along a prescribed route. The judges expressed their delight in seeing the floral results in their many forms and the way the village had been tidied up and was virtually litter less.

The tireless amateur gardeners of St. Mary’s Church and Ecclesfield in Bloom seem to combine naturally each year to produce neat, tidy and colourful displays along with constant grass-cutting and plant tendering.

There are no winners or losers from the judging only awards for efforts made and from our point of view nearly every home made a real effort to help. Help comes in many forms from all age groups and is appreciated very much.

There are too many people involved to name individuals within Ecclesfield in Bloom or the Church gardeners and the same must be said of our sponsors, who are mainly local businesses and of course a few private individuals.

Many thanks to everyone, without you and your efforts Ecclesfield would not be as blooming lovely as it now is.

Judging awards will be published on 20^th. September 2011

Keith Fish

Ecclesfield in Bloom

4 Sept 2011

1	We have just delivered all the prizes to the winners of our flower competition at our joint stand at the Ecclesfield Gala. Click on the picture to see the results.

15 July 2011

(Friday) 9:00 Summer Judging. Thanks to everybody's efforts, the village made a very favorable impression on the two judges.

9 July 2011

(Saturday) 10:00 There was a good turnout of people for our litter-picking, brushing, and weeding session. This was a major clean-up concentrating on the judging route from the middle of the High Street to St. Mary's Church but we are hoping to keep the village looking good right up to the Summer judging and beyond.

6 July 2011

(Wednesday) 18:15 We thank everybody who attended the "You Choose" event at Newton Memorial Hall in Chapeltown, and voted for us. The wildflower area at Ladycroft is already look better, and we have paid for the wood needed to make the special planters. We are also hoping to buy a blower, strimmer and other garden tools needed to look after the land.

23 June 2011

If you live near the centre of Ecclesfield, then you may have received a copy of the "Ecclesfield in Bloom" newsletter, with details of the "You Choose" event on the back. If not, you can download and print a copy by clicking on the picture on the left.

18 June 2011

(Saturday) 10:00 Our working party has removed the cleavers which were strangling the wild flowers on Ladycroft Meadow.

10 June 2011

We have purchased two bench seats, and put them in position in front of the wild-flower area of Ladycroft Meadow (between St. Mary's lane and the Park) We hope people enjoy using them .

7 May 2011

(Saturday) 10:00 Thank you to everyone who turned up at St. Mary's Church bearing cakes, plants, bric-a-brac and cards, and to everyone who attended and bought something. What a fantastic mornings work!!. The proceeds will go to help us keep Ecclesfield-in-bloom.

15 April 2011

Ecclesfield in Bloom wishes to thank Raheel Baig, Sheffield City Council Streetforce, their road sweeper, and everybody who did such a first class job in grass cutting, and road/pathway clearing in our Village prior to the Spring inspection of the Village by "Yorkshire in Bloom".

15 April 2011

(Friday) 11:00 The Yorkshire-in-bloom judges walked through the Conservation area and gave a good spring report (See page 9) including the hard earned plaudit "clean and tidy with little evidence of litter". The report also suggested...

Thinking about the design of the whole of the Church Street area, not just the planters
Re-planting the beds in front of the flats on The High Street [done]
Improving the square [Stocks Hill I think]
More floral displays adjacent to premises such as the Black Bull.
Maximising the potential of the woodland between the Park and Ladycroft Meadow.
Expanding the wildlife area in the Churchyard, and considering something like this for the bank on Town End Road
Recycling [Compost bins, mulching, litter recycling, water butts, or signage perhaps]
Enhance the gravestone of Alexander John Scott, Chaplain to Lord Nelson.
An "Interpretation board".

Summer judging will be between 4th and 22nd July 2011.

14 April 2011

We have arranged to clear up and do a litter pick of the Ecclesfield in Bloom area on the Thursday afternoon.

9April 2011

We weeded the area around Stocks Hill this Saturday. It looks much better.

19 March 2011

19 (Saturday) 10:00 The large turnout of people meant that all the soil we had bought for Ladycroft Meadow finally got distributed today. 105 saplings supplied by the "Woodland Trust" were also planted. The land is therefore ready for the placement of the two benches that we have ordered and seeding with some 3kgs of mixed grass, wild cornflower, and perhaps other seeds. Click on the picture opposite to see a some of the people that helped.

12 March 2011

12 (Saturday) 10:00 We had a great time weeding the flower beds at the Junction of St. Mary's Lane and Yew Lane on Saturday 12th March. We were especially grateful to the lady who as you can see here, brought us out copious cups of tea and coffee.

26 January 2011

Notes from our attendance at the Voluntary, Community, and Faith Groups meeting at The Venue, Stocksbridge on 26th January.

We would like to thank the gentleman that handed one of our members a donation at the end of 2010. We will use it to buy some plants for the village.

A great thank you to all who attended the "YOU CHOOSE" event on Tuesday 16th of November 2010 at Newton Hall, Chapeltown, and especially everybody who voted for our successful application for a grant to put a bench seat on Ladycroft Meadow (between St. Mary's lane and the Park).

The picture on the right shows the sort of thing that we are hoping to purchase....

We have organised a working party to distribute the soil needed to plant bulbs on Ladycroft Meadow for 10 am on Saturday 30th October 2010. Ladycroft has already been sprayed so that it will be ready for this work.

Daffodil and Crocus bulbs have been collected from the Council, and are likely to be planted alongside the Hearse House, along the Church Wall, around the Jeffcock Fountain, and at Ladycroft Meadow on St. Mary's Lane.We have cleaned and replanted the two planters on lower Church Street. New plants have been ordered for the trough, and we are replanting the planters at the bottom of Greaves Road.

Our Autumn 2010 newsletter is out and will be delivered to the In-Bloom area shortly.

Our 2010 RESULTS in the YORKSHIRE IN BLOOM competition - a SILVER for Ecclesfield Village, SILVER-GILT for St. Mary's Churchyard, and SILVER for "The Stocks". See the Judges comments here.

A thank you to all the people who visited our stand at Ecclesfield Gala on Sunday. The answers to our "Where is it" quiz are here. There are also a couple of pictures of our stand on http://ecclesfield.wikia.com/wiki/Gala2010, and another picture may appear in next week's Look Local.

We have strimmed the grass, but progress on Ladycroft Meadow on St. Marys Lane is still held up because of a bad back. We are hoping that this will be sufficiently improved for something to be done in the second week of September.

We are looking to buy a proper grass cutter to enable us to look after Ladycroft and other areas.

We are helping to decorate the window ledges of St. Mary's Church on 16th September, ready for their flower festival which starts on Friday 17th. If anybody wants to help, join us in the Church on Monday 13th September, or on Sunday 19th to help us take things down.

We thank our anonymous donor for the £50 received.

We have ordered 1000 daffodils and 200 crocuses from Sheffield City Council, and will be planting them around the village this autumn.

Any organisations wishing to sponsor one of our planters and have a plaque displayed, please contact

The in-bloom judges agreed that Ecclesfield had improved, so a Thank you to everybody who braved the rain and contributed to the fantastic amount of work that went into improving Ecclesfield prior to the summer judging. In particular, the gravel and planters at the front of Marlfield Croft, the painting out of graffiti on the old Fishing tackle shop on St. Marys Lane, and weeding the shrub beds at the junction of High Street and Yew Lane. As a result, the route which covered Church Street down to the Park entrance; St. Mary’s Lane and High Street to the bottom of Greaves Road; Stocks Hill, Townend Road to the quarry and Priory Road; was tidy and litter free, with flowers being displayed in windows and gardens. A thank you also, to Ecclesfield Primary School and the winners of our Art Competition who attended the Judges visit. We are therefore confident of a good result when the announcement in made on Tuesday, September 14th.
People living on the route should have received a leaflet and a copy of our June newsletter. If not click here. It was particularly gratifying to see that at least three of them were being displayed on people's windows.
Thanks to everybody who attended our "Plant Sale/Coffee Morning" at St. Marys Church, we raised £388 for Ecclesfield in Bloom.

The footpath between between Priory Road and the St. Marys Church entrance may have become dangerous. We are hoping to reset some of the stones to make it safer.

There was a fantastic turnout to the litter pick prior to Spring Judging on 20th June, and Ecclesfield looked much better as a result. That gave us a start, and enabled us to continue to pick litter and keep the Village reasonably clear. The judges seemed pleased, and commented on the way people had made good use of small pieces of land, and the number of people displaying posters in the windows. We are hoping to distribute "Thank You leaflets" along the route.

We thank Jane and Brian Grace for their kind donation to Ecclesfield in Bloom in memory of their friend John Grayson.

We thank all the pupils at "Ecclesfield Primary School", who contributed their pictures. All the results were brilliant, but we had to select some of the pictures as winners and have now given out "seed kits" or a voucher to the winners.

We thank everybody who attended the "Northern Assembly's" "You Choose" even in "The Gatty Hall" on 30th January, and are glad to be able to announce that our grant application for tools to maintain Ladycroft Meadow on St. Marys Lane (and other public spaces), was approved. We now have a layout plan for the area, including a Village Notice board and a plaque depicting sites of interest around Ecclesfield.

We are looking to buy a heavy duty petrol driven mower or strimmer, water bowser, and other equipment to help maintain some of the public spaces in the area. If anybody has any information that might help, please email

We are looking for local firms to sponsor planters, and are hoping to obtain plaques to allow sponsor's details to be placed on their planter.

THINGS DONE IN 2009...

Both the Stocks and St Mary's Churchyard won a "Silver Rose" (one of only 9 "Pubs", and 20 "Establishments" to be ranked as highly), and Ecclesfield Church neighborhood won a "Merit" (one of 27) in Yorkshire in Bloom 2009. The judges were "impressed with the standard of cleanliness; the brochure showing works so far, and the group’s plans for the future". The Parish Council pictured the event here, and the award certificates are going to be displayed in St. Marys Church.

Click for a larger picture of the flowers near St. Mary's Church

Click here for our Ecclesfield in Bloom Poster.

Click here for the new Unofficial Ecclesfield in Bloom Site

We thank Jane and Brian Grace for their donation in memory of their friend Marjorie.

We would like to thank visitors to the Coffee Morning and Plant Sale at St. Mary's Church, on 2nd May.

Thanks to their generosity, and the efforts of our members and David Banham, (who along with our latest member, Rose ran the "St Mary's Cafe"), the princely sum of £400 was raised. Compost has therefore been purchased and delivery of planters arranged. We also congratulate the holder of winning raffle ticket No. 46, who is welcome to ring us on 246 8329.

People may also have noticed improvements to the old garage site between St. Marys Road and Ecclesfield Park. Lots of work has been done by the various Ecclesfield groups to improve this land, including a massive clearance job, the importation of topsoil and the planting of five trees. We have sown wild flower seeds and have just strimmed the grass frontage.

Work has also been done to repair the stone wall to the side of St. Marys Church, which had lost its topping stones.

We thank the 16 organisations who have given us financial or other support for Yorkshire in Bloom 2009...
Ecclesfield in Bloom is insured by Assured Insurance Solutions Ltd of Town End Road (to September 2010)

Click here to see other Ecclesfield Groups...
Notes:

LadyCroft Meadow contains daffodils which are poisonous, as well as wild flowers and native trees, many of which protect themselves by being poisonous to humans and animals. Cuttings or debris may be especially dangerous, since animals may not be put off from eating them, while some of their poisons last 6 months. Nothing on the area should therefore be eaten or grazed.
We do not recommend Firefox for viewing these pages, since it shows out of date versions. Use Internet Explorer . (or in Firefox click Tools > Options > Advanced > Network > "Clear Now" between visits)