## **Trustees’ annual report for the period,** **From: 1[st] February 2025, period start date, to: 31[st] January 2026, period end date.** **Charity name: Oldway Gardens Group** **Charity registration number: 1196635** **Charities registered address: 18 Cecil Avenue, Preston, Paignton, TQ3 1LW** **Charities activities address: Oldway Gardens, Oldway Road, Paignton, Devon** **Names of charity trustees who manage the charity:** **Tim Eley, President Peter Welsby, Chair Susan Saunders, Vice Chair andTreasurer Joanne Jones, Secretary Pauline Baker, Assistant secretary** ## **Summary of purposes** The conservation and preservation of the flora and fauna and natural environment of Oldway Mansion Gardens for the benefit of the public including the advancement of education of the public to celebrate the history and traditions of the gardens to connect the community to its heritage and to develop interest and skills in proficient gardening and estate management. ## **Summary of main activities in relation to above** ## **Education/training/arts/culture/heritage/science/environment/ conservation/heritage/recreation** The Oldway Gardens Volunteer Group took over and has looked after the maintenance of Oldway Mansion Gardens, since September 2019, after the council which owns the site, ran out of money. The site consists of 17 acres of grade 2 listed gardens and is a public park, completely open to the general public 365 days of the year, there are no gates. The main garden design was by Achille Duchene, completed in 1902, and consists of grassed parkland, two distinctive parterres, herbaceous borders, terraces, flower beds, sub tropical areas, a grotto rockery, pond and stream, designed by F.W. Meyer, water plants and wooded areas. There are many birds, small animals, insects and amphibious creatures that inhabit the gardens. We have a programme of sustainability for the future, whilst preserving the past. We have kept in mind the guidance from the charity commission to ensure that we are entirely independent of the local council, are free to make our own decisions on administration, finances and legal matters, we have our own management plan and policies. Our own committee which meets regularly and we meet with council officials to advise them on what we are doing and wish to do in the future. We are completely inclusive with approximately fifty active volunteers of all ages and backgrounds, we do not discriminate. We have volunteers with physical disabilities, with mental health problems, with learning difficulties that come with carers. We have groups of community payback persons with their supervisors; we have groups of children from the local primary school with their class teachers and helpers, and also young persons doing their Duke of Edinburgh awards. All are welcome. We actively encourage all our volunteers to share with others the skills that they have, whilst developing skills in those who wish to learn, in their knowledge of plants and wildlife and their gardening skills. Others, who prefer to use their hospitality skills, look after our plant stall, providing a selection of plants donated or grown by ourselves, or look after our tea hut, providing refreshments to all the visitors to the gardens. Other volunteers with skills in building and maintenance mend gardening equipment, build benches, make planters, bird boxes and related wooden items for the gardens and sale to visitors, from our gardeners’ yard and its related buildings. We grow our own plants mainly from cuttings and believe in sustainability. We provide tours of the gardens to any visitors that want them. We have developed popular family garden trails to encourage visitors, and do our own administration. We keep a register and between 17[th] November 2021 when we became a charity and 31[st] January 2026 our volunteers logged up just over 54,501 hours of recorded voluntary work. Unrecorded work goes on behind the scenes continually as well. We estimate that at an average recommended wage of £17 per hour, we should be able to match fund if bidding for a grant, of £926,517. The group’s trustees look after the day to day running of the group, overall gardening management, supervision, administration, accounts, running the web site, social media and marketing, we also have a full committee of 12, whose personnel are delegated to look after the newer volunteers, to understand their previous gardening skills, training needs, plus projects and areas that they might prefer to work on, and also to design and run a rota system for the plant stall and tea hut. The trustees disseminate information to the committee at regular meetings where everyone’s advice, thoughts and idea are welcomed, minutes are published and talked through with all volunteers. The group has a management system in place, which includes full risk assessments, health and safety, training procedures and policies. The group has a good relationship with Torbay Council who owns the Oldway Estate and their company SWISCo collect our garden waste that we were disposing of ourselves and they also mow the two large fields on the estate with large tractor mowers, which we were mowing with small hand petrol mowers, at no charge to the group. The Group has developed a really good relationship with the local ministry of justice department, who provide us with teams of Community Payback personnel, and supervisors, every week, who work on projects that we set them, overseen by our Vice Chair. We support young persons working on their Duke of Edinburgh awards, and several persons with disabilities, who attend with their carers and enablers. The group has established a good relationship with The Oldway primary school that has its back gate opening to the gardens. The school children use the gardens for nature studies and we have involved them in a pollinating project, giving and opening several beds for them to sow wild seeds into and tend them. The group’s president is involved with the Royal Horticultural Society and locally with South West in Bloom, part of Britain in Bloom, as a judge. The Oldway Gardens Group is actively encouraged to participate in the yearly competition for the, “In your neighbourhood award”. The group’s chair is actively involved in supervision of all volunteers and the persons from the Community Payback teams on a daily basis. The group’s lady vice chair and treasurer is a qualified tour guide and provides guided tours of the gardens including the history of the Singer family who established the estate. She is also qualified to produce all our risk assessments. The group’s secretary, as well as administration, looks after our social media content. We have a web site, www.oldwaygardens.co.uk, which links to everything. The group’s assistant secretary manages all aspects of our tea hut, whilst producing and organising all our family trails and she is our main first aid person. The group has a good relationship with the Preston Community Partnership, the main Torbay Community Partnership cover the insurance for all volunteer groups in Torbay. All trustees give their time voluntarily and receive no remuneration or other benefits, only legitimate expenses. In planning our activities for the year we kept in mind the Charity Commissions guidance on public benefit at our trustee meetings, where everything is minuted. With our changing climate, one of our goals has always been sustainability. In our sub tropical climate area, where we have many different ferns, shrubs and trees, our rockery is thriving with heathers, rock plants, and echiums, also our pond is flourishing with donated water lilies, irises, grasses, bull rushes, and around the pond, persicaria, primroses, cowslips and lavender, attracting, bees, dragonflies, butterflies, and many different birds, and other wildlife. We have continued to coppice and clear overgrown and self seeding trees and bushes that have taken over the gardens in the last 100 years, opening up the views and providing a safer environment for visitors. During the season from March to October, our plant stall is open 5 days a week, manned by volunteers, providing an income to enable the group to purchase equipment and plants, as well as growing them, for the gardens. Our tea hut is open 7 days a week, manned by volunteers, providing refreshments to visitors, as well as where our garden trails begin and end. Again, all proceeds go into sustaining the work of the charity. Heritage and Garden Tours take place and provide a wealth of information about the history of the Singer Family. One of the old grass tennis courts is hired out to provide a safe place for dog training sessions. Our normal days of garden volunteering are Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and throughout this year, depending on the weather, all the jobs that need tackling were dealt with. The Community Payback teams also come in over the weekend and get to work on the heavy jobs. This year Torbay Council received funding to start restoration work on the main mansion house roof, which required them to put up scaffolding around the whole building. As Historic England refused to allow any scaffolding to be attached to the historic building, a very large amount of floating scaffolding has been put up, necessitating a wide perimeter hoarding fence. Unfortunately the fence has meant the enclosure of some of the gardens, including one of the parterres, luckily, due to the co-operation of the building firm and the council, our volunteer gardeners have had full access, with PPE to tend to these areas. February 25 - Our maintenance team repaired and restored a pair of large metal entrance gates to the lower gardens, whilst continuing to repair and restore garden benches. Some of our Community Pay Back persons produced bird boxes and planters from donated wood decking. We received a large amount of polyanthus from a supporter and planted into the gardens. The group decided to have a logo, which was chosen after a few designs were suggested by volunteers. March 25 - Maintenance team rebuilt the old tea hut up at the yard to be used as a potting shed, putting in a donated glass window from local company. Garden volunteer team removed a very large 30 year old, self seeded sycamore tree which roots were encroaching on the Grotto structure. April 25 - Our tea “shed” opened from the gardener’s yard in the refurbished stable door unit, with a family Easter trail organised. The plant stall volunteers also decided to operate from the gardener’s yard due to the inclement weather. With the hoarding round the mansion being erected 4 stone planters needed emptying and the builders used fork lift trucks to bring them out into the garden area for us to use in strategic places. The maintenance team put up an extension gazebo to the tea shed to be used as our plant stall. May 25 – BBC spotlight visited Oldway as part of national gardens week, interviewing some of our volunteers. We had a visit from the trustees of the Devon Garden Trust to discuss the legacy left by a supporter of Achille Duchene’s work, in particular Oldway, and projects that we wanted. Two of our garden volunteers took on the task of creating a sensory garden in a neglected part of the garden attached to the Little Oldway retirement home. The owner of the home is giving permission for this garden to be used by members of the public visiting Oldway gardens. We have purchased some polo shirts and base ball caps with our new logo, for the volunteers. Next to the tea hut the maintenance team set up a friendship bench on a paved area. We helped the local primary school children to sew wildflower seeds in the patches that we gave them. June 24 – We received a bucket full of recycled tulip bulbs from Torre Abbey. Our treasurer applied for a was awarded Torbay heritage funding of £4000 for four projects, to replace amateur history boards, professionally, to produce signage on plants and trees, to produce entrance maps, to produce interpretation panels for areas such as the parterres and grotto. We have reached 2,700 followers on social media. July 25 – Judging for the S.W in bloom took place. We held an open garden day to support another local charity, Rowcroft hospice. The volunteers attended an afternoon tea party at a local hotel, to thank them all for their contribution. Members of the Singer family living in France and USA visited. Trustees were invited to the mayor’s garden party. August 25 – Volunteers were allowed to go behind the hoarding to remove as many bulbs and plants to replant in the outer garden, and to cut back plants that couldn’t be removed. We decided to invest in new equipment. Behind the scenes, the history boards have been completed in draft, and will be 8 or 9 boards 4ft by 6ft, which may be used for the history tours in the garden. Sept 25 – We held a BBQ to thank the volunteers, purchased a large lawn mower and leaf blower, and some additional hi-viz vests. With no warning or reason, the heritage team of Torbay Council stopped the production of the history boards. We have asked for a meeting. Oct 25 – The chair and vice chair attended a meeting at Torre Abbey with three members of the heritage team of Torbay Council. Although two of them were on the award team for the Torbay lottery funding, it was obvious that they didn’t understand about the history boards, believing them to be interpretation boards and subject to their scrutinising and ultimate completion. The meeting was rather unpleasant and we will be putting in a formal complaint. We held a very successful Halloween trail, Oldway has now achieved a really good reputation for our family trails. Unfortunately we had some problems with contractors trucks appearing in the gardens near the back entrance of the primary school to do some work on the school fences whilst the children were on half term. No one had thought to advise us and it caused some real health and safety issues. Tea hut and plant stall closed for the year. Nov 24 – One of the school teachers loaned us some old log books from the school archives from 1874 to 1937. It was very interesting to find several references to the Singer family, which will be very useful for the history tours. Many tulip bulbs planted in the parterre and surrounding area. Our bank closed our local branch which makes it difficult for paying in coinage in future. Dec 25 – We have been refurbishing our meeting room in the garden yard during this year and purchased a few new kitchen units. Christmas get together for volunteers with mince pies. Vice chair received a copy of the audio recording of the heritage meeting in October, this was also heard by several of the leading Torbay councillors, and the councils CEO. They are all supportive and will try to get the projects back on track. Jan 24 – The volunteers continue to carry out general duties in the gardens. In the gardener’s yard cleaning and the maintenance of tools, and making and building up the stock of planters for the new season taking place. At the end of the month, one of the three very large Monteray pine trees sitting on the top of the grotto was uprooted after a month of storms and rain. It fell across the roof of the grotto, causing it to cave in. There is a huge amount of damage. The council have put up heras fencing, and both the tree specialists and Devon Garden Trust specialists have been called in. ## **Financial Review** **Bank:** business account with National Westminster, Bristol City Centre, branch, with cash in bank at 31[st] January 2026 of £40,265 of unrestricted funds and £4,000 of restricted funds. Our main sources of income has been from plants, hand made wooden planters and other crafted garden items, tea hut sales, donations and from our family trails. ## **Future plans** To continue to build on what we have achieved. ## **Declarations** ## **The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above.** ## **Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees** ## **Mrs Susan Elizabeth Saunders** ## **Trustee, treasurer** ## **27[th] April 2026**