Poetry for 10 June Community Festival

The running order for the events is taking shape and a local poet, Dinah Livingstone, will be reading some of her poetry including this one.

St Martin's Gardens

These gardens for the overflow of graves
from St Martin's in the Fields are our lung,
our public open space;they now belong
to ghosts and many local London lives.
Dappled sunlight through the plane tree leaves,
shadows of municipal railings flung
aslant the path, my tiny daughter climbing
the monstrous slide, the kindly gardner saves
my naughty four year-old lost son,
now long ago, but in the atmosphere
of this between-the-housebacks little park,
the back of many minds, a village green
in Camden, like the tombs they stay here,
though still with all their future fresh to make.

Dinah Livingstone

Poster

We are getting ready and the poster will look a bit like this. There is a nature area just behind the children's play area and that's where the butterflies will be able to feed, but at the moment the plants aren't there to attract them.

Stage Area for St Martins' Gardens Event_Sat 10 June

This is where the stage will be built with the perfomers' entrance and facilities accessed from St Martin's Close.

'This pretty close approaching St Martin's Gardens, originally bought in 1803 as an extra burial ground for the parish of St Martin's-in-the-Fields. Navies rioted in 1854 when the trustees developed over graves. Acquired by St Pancras in 1887 and left as a park.'

thanks to www.camdenbus.co.uk for the quote

Friends of St Martin's Gardens

We have started to get going on the Community Festival for Saturday 10 June. There is a pretty good initial list of music and other performance acts as well as children's entertainment. It should all work out well. The Countess of Roseberry will come along with her grand-children; her ancestor, another Countess of Roseberry, opened the Gardens on 24 July 1889.

We are looking forward to meeting the current Countess of Roseberry.

St Martin's Gardens are a great community resource and the local residents are working hard to have a series of outodoor events to make best use of the grass, playground and other facilities during summer 2006.