Hooray!  Our garden installation is nearly ready:  the plaster cast walls are being dabbed with final touches of plaster, our plants are bulking up nicely, the surprise ornaments are shouting to get out of their packaging, and the printers have run off the hospital signs.  It has been a labour of love over the last year or more in planning and a hectic few months of bringing together the research, design and build.  We hope you enjoy it, that it provokes questions in you and even causes an ernest discussion or two.

To develop the debate further, we are hosting two public talks with leading speakers in the fields of landscape and social history of hospitals. They are Dr Clare Hickman, landscape historian at Kings College and author of ‘Therapeutic Landscapes: a history of hospital gardens since 1800’; and Steph Eastoe, social historian at Birkbeck College, who is researching her PhD on the social history of a mental hospital.  Rebecca Smith, gardening therapist and garden designer, will also be discussing her design intention based on the research, and the development of the installation.  The talks will be held on Sundays 17th and 24th May 3-5pm by the garden installation.  We will decamp to a local bar/cafe after the talk to continue the conversation.  Bring brollies.

We are located by Saltpoint Bar, 2 Exchange Square, London EC2A 2EH, by the wall of the large waterfall.  Its worth looking at the map of the estate to navigate there:  http://www.broadgate.co.uk/Around