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Supporters will note that it was necessary to dismantle part of the wall a few years ago to prevent it collapsing. A pesky tree route had pushed the wall out to such a degree that our intervention was necessary. Our friend and local stone wall expert Rebecca Cook made good the opening to prevent it getting worse while we set about fundraising for the repair. 

We were thrilled to tell you in February that the works were planned and to say we were excited would be an understatement. You might find this excitement amusing but we’ve been staring at that hole in the wall for far too long.

Even with your donations safely banked, we still had one more hurdle to jump – a condition of our listed building consent dictated that the council needed final sign off of our mortar mix. Again, massive thanks to Rebecca Cook for providing the specification for this. 

Hythe firm Taylor Earnshaw Building Limited started work in June and completed a few weeks later. We hadn’t anticipated the extent of the damage to the wall and unfortunately some sections required more work that expected but we were in good hands!

Our volunteers had spent many workdays sorting through a mass of ragstone on site and this hard work meant we didn’t need to buy in a single stone! 

Our sincerest thanks to Ken and Jill Stewart for storing the original coping bricks for us and Rebecca Cook for her expertise, support and guidance over the last 8 years.

Remember, this would not have been possible without your donations. We are now raising funds for the remaining sections of the wall.

With so much development going on locally, protecting our heritage seems more important than ever but it does come at a cost, and with your help – our little animal pound could stand for another 200 years!

The next phase will see us repair, consolidate and rebuild sections of the wall on Albert Road and St Leonard’s Road. You can see just how urgent the works are in the pictures below.

We need to raise an initial £4,000 to start this work. At the time of writing, we have £1,500. 

Every penny we receive furthers our charitable objectives but in this cost of living crisis, please only give if you can afford to. There are other ways to help, keep an eye on our Facebook group for details of our working days (you don’t need to be a Facebook user to see our posts).

You can help preserve this unique part of Hythe’s history by donating online via https://donate.hythetriangle.uk or get in touch to discuss a contribution by other means.

In 2012, the Triangle was granted Grade II listed status and we thought we’d share a part of the listing text with you. This information is taken from the Historic England record.

The triangular-shaped former animal pound - a compound where stray stock was kept until its owner paid a release fine to the lord of the manor - is clearly marked 'Pound' on the 1877 First Edition 25 inch Ordnance Survey sheet. Deeds to this land indicate it was used as a horse watering station in the late C19, probably by the military. In the late C19 the land was purchased by the owners of Rockdean (Grade II) situated to the west across St Leonard's Road.

By the 1898 and subsequent editions of the Ordnance Survey maps the structure is no longer labelled as a pound. The land was offered to the local council in 1928 for the erection of a public convenience and urinal but the new owner of Rockdean took out a covenant on the land on 4 June 1928 to prevent the erection of the public convenience and purchased the land from his fellow executors for £150. In the 1950s the north end of the north-east side was taken down to improve the turning circle for a coach company called Newmans.

In 1966 Rockdean and this parcel of land was purchased by Major Worts and a covenant was placed on the land to prevent it being used as a drying ground and to prevent the erection of drying posts. Subsequently the missing section of wall was replaced in C20 brick and the area is currently planted.

We are very grateful to our new trustees and volunteers for making 2021 a very productive year in the triangle despite periods of lockdown and other difficulties.The pictures above give some indication of the progress we’ve made.

We’re now in a transitional phase, clearing the invasive plants including roots and the membrane which the roots are attached to. Some of you may well think it looked better with the dense vegetation rather than the barren state it’s now in but during the coming year we hope you will start to notice the a big difference as we create a more managed, biodiverse garden.

We are in the process of producing a community engagement strategy and development plan but in the meantime we will continue to clear the invasive vegetation seeding the bare earth with a selection of wildflower seeds.

We’ve raised over £6000 in the last 12 months from friends and local councillors. Thank you to Hythe’s district councillors – Jim Martin, Georgina Treloar and Lesley Whybrow and former county councillor Martin Whybrow who have all supported us from their respective ward / member’s grant budgets.

Thanks also to Waitrose, Hythe for their generous donation.

This funding has enabled us to instruct a local contractor to commence repairs to the Windmill Street section of the wall in May 2022.

If you would like to join us or support us with the cost of repairing the wall, we are always pleased to welcome more help and support. You can get in touch via hello@htcg.org , phone us on 07843 851236 or leave us a message via the Hythe Triangle Community Garden Facebook group.

Since we published our Interim Management & Maintenance Plan in June this year, we’ve hosted regular weekend gardening events with the main aim of clearing invasive vegetation.

Our first gardening event was held on July 11th, and we have met most weekends since. As you can see in the photos, our dedicated volunteers have done marvellous work.

We’ll be scaling back our works over winter but we’re still aiming to meet every other weekend.

Managing the vegetation on site will enable us to assess the condition of the wall, something we’ll be doing with a local contractor in the coming weeks.

Everyone is welcome at our gardening days and we always have jobs for people regardless of ability. Keep your eyes peeled on our Facebook group for details on when we will be meeting next.

Not long after our last update we were plunged into another lockdown aimed at curtailing the spread of the coronavirus. As I write this, the lockdown restrictions have eased and it’s possible to meet up with friends outside but the rules still prevent more than two households meeting up outside.

This has undoubtedly hampered our ambitions on site but we will be bounce back stronger when the restrictions are further eased, and we can get back to group meetings on site.

We’ve obtained listed building consent and we’re about to go out to contractors for prices for repairs to the wall, starting with re-building the wall on Windmill Street.

We’ve already spoken to two brilliant Kent-based contractors but if you’re reading this and know someone who specialises in rag stone wall repairs – get in touch!

We’ve also decided to look for up to two additional trustees to support our efforts – you can find the role description and an application form below.

Our trustees oversee the Triangle project and they’re responsible for delivering on the aims of the charity: to protect and conserve the site’s history, and to provide a space for recreation.

We are very grateful to the Hythe Town Council who this week gave its support to our listed building consent application. Our particular thanks for Cllrs Major Keith Miles and Douglas Wade who spoke on the application.

Cllr Wade described the site as “an important feature of this part of Hythe and a historic area that commands particular attention and support amongst residents of the area.”

He said “It is an important area to conserve and the new trustees are doing a good job and I very strongly support this idea that work should be done to this in order to improve it, conserve it and enhance it.”

Cllr Miles has been a vocal supporter of our project for a number of years notably during a debate at Hythe Town Council in 2018 and now in favour of this application. Cllr Miles said: “It is very important. It’s a very detailed, explicit report detailing the poor state of the walls and the sooner they can go ahead and get them repaired, the better. I am fully supportive of this application.”

Cllrs Jim Martin and Martin Whybrow both registered a personal interest in the application and opted to abstain. Cllr Martin, a qualified surveyor, donated professional services to the Charity in 2016 in support of our land purchase. Cllr Whybrow, who is a county councillor, has twice granted us funds via his Combined Members Grant.

Hythe Town Council is a statutory consultee and their support will be noted by the planning officers dealing with the application. We expect a decision to be made in March, if not sooner.

Watch the Town Council planning meeting online, on Facebook.

The first meeting with the 4 new trustees was in August.  Since then the trustees have met in September, October and in December.  

The main work has been:

• A soil test has been commissioned and received.
• Work towards a Listed Building application to consolidate and rebuild the walls has commenced.  This includes a pre-application discussion with FHDC staff in December.  An application will follow this discussion.
• Several local contractors have been approached for estimates to clear invasive weeds, remove the membrane that covers the site and to carry out works on the wall.
• Some funding has been obtained for the above work but significant funding remains to be found to complete the works and a long term plan for the site.
• Agreement of a set of overarching principles for the design of the site which will enable the trustees to ask the community to submit its feedback and ideas in the New Year.   
• Encountering the inevitable administrative issues of running a charity – a new risk assessment has been put in place, banking arrangements have been reviewed and a draft management and maintenance plan considered.

The trustees will meet again in mid-January 2021 and will provide feedback to the community.

Following a great response to our recruitment drive, the Charity is pleased to announce that we have appointed 4 additional trustees to lead our organisation and the project to transform the Hythe Triangle.

We were fortunate to have a strong field of candidates and we interviewed 8 individuals in total. Each one had the skills, experience and motivation to take on the role.

New Trustees

Alyson Ward, Crispin Davies, Julie Abbott and Terry Ellames have joined Andy Maguire and Ashley Tanton as Trustees of the Hythe Triangle Community Garden.

The Trustees had their first meeting on August 01, 2020, and made a number of decisions that are critical to the future of the project, including a potential sale of the land.

Faced with two offers to purchase the Triangle, the Trustees agreed unanimously that the interests of the Charity are better served by us keeping the freehold of the site.

The Trustees also agreed to work on an engagement strategy, and have identified a number of potential sources for funding.

We will, of course, continue to rely on the community support that has been so forthcoming in previous years.

We will continue to publish updates right here and on our Facebook Group.