The Green Space Volunteers hard at work planting the rockery.

There has been a rockery on the north side of the upper lake in Pittville Park since 1890. It was constructed to resemble the Alps with vertical rocks and very few plants. In 1930 Mr Leuchars, the parks and garden superintendent remodelled the rockery with stone from the quarry on Leckhampton Hill in the style we see today. It was reported in the Gloucestershire Echo in 1933 that he planted it out with a considerable number of alpines and other rockery plants to add floral interest in the park.

Adam Reynolds, the CBC parks manager, with the help of green space volunteers from the Friends of Pittville have been working for the last three years (slowed down by covid) to restore the west end of the rockery to close to its original state.

On 6 May a large planting operation with plants purchased by Cheltenham BC from a local nursery, Hoo House, and some from FoP members, was carried out by volunteers from Friends of Pittville and supervised by landscape architect Linda Thomas.