top of page

The Garden of Remembrance

Penarth Civic Society

Updated: Oct 29, 2024

Visiting the Garden of Remembrance one day in 2012, Chris Wyatt of Penarth Civic Society thought it looked rather unloved.


The hedge on one side had grown high enough to obscure Rectory Road and the large conifer at the end cut off the light and the view to the sea. As a memorial garden it all looked quite sad. He knew there had also been a problem for the wreath bearers on Armistice Sunday.

Numbers had grown steadily over the years and the design of the garden meant they had to jostle shoulder to shoulder in a confined space to space to lay their wreaths while the flag bearers were crowded out.


Immediately, having conferred with colleagues, Chris contacted the Vale Council to offer the Civic Society’s help in a project to renovate the garden. This offer was accepted and within weeks the hedges had been cut back and the trees including the conifer cut down before the birds could nest.


Meetings between the Vale and the Civic Society followed and the project was approved, Diana Mead of the Civic Society having produced plans to show how she thought the layout of the garden could be improved. She explained:


My involvement in the refurbishment of Penarth’s Garden of Remembrance is one of my proudest memories. I felt honoured to be involved. My first step was to watch and photograph the event to see what was needed. This resulted in my new semi-circular layout for the wreath-laying ceremony which gave everyone involved a better view of the ceremony and made the distance each wreath had to be carried to be laid more equal. Phil Beaman and his Parks and Gardens team used old photographs of the original garden when it was first installed as a guide to to the general renovation. Their attention to detail, including Malcolm Drysdale’s impressive replicas of the original Art Deco benches, was incredible and enthusiastic. Watching the ceremony in its new setting and format was very moving and the comments from Penarth residents afterwards were very positive.”


Penarth Civic Society was happy to finance refurbishment of the memorial stone to complete the transformation.

Comments


The Penarth Civic Society is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation RCN: 1182348*

The content of this website is created & managed by volunteer members of PCS.

Unless stated otherwise, all information & images on this website are ©1986-present The Penarth Civic Society (/ Penarth Society / Civic Society of Penarth 1971-1986) or have been acquired by or donated to the PCS Picture & Archive Libraries for use by us as we see fit. No use in other media or reproduction allowed without prior consent. All rights reserved by respective sources where applicable.

*The Penarth Civic Society is not responsible for the content of external websites, documents or other items we do not have specific control over but choose to link to in good faith.

Penarth Civic Society Time Changed copy.jpg
  • Loving Penarth - Facebook

We would like to thank Emma Cahill of Socially Aware, and Blue Web Design for designing this site, Sarah and Ben Salter for the photographs, Andrew Salter for the Peregrine Falcons film, Chris Riley, Alan Thorne and Bruce Wallace for their contributions to the History of Penarth area of the site, and Comic Relief for helping to fund the site design.

Comic Relief Wales logo (1).png

and Members & Public Donations

Last Site Update 29/12/2024

bottom of page