The Creative English programme we have delivered over the last 4 years focuses on a wide range of topics such as health, public transport, recognising landmarks, seasonal events and festivals amongst many more (see the ‘Our Creative English Group’ page within this blog for more info). Following the catastropic fire that decimated The Ascension Church in February, 2017, the Creative English classes relocated to our nearby sister church of St. Paul’s Church, Pendelton, Salford.

Many of the discussions involved in the learning activities within classes have covered UK culture, history and heritage. To continue and expand these learning activities, we are now delivering a new project alongside our current Creative English activities. This new project goes beyond the class-room, with regular, ‘field-trips’ to iconic, cultural, historical and scenic places across Greater Manchester and its rural surroundings so that participants can learn about nature, ecology, heritage and gardening, linked into our Paradise Garden rebuild programme whilst practicing English and making friends!

The field trips will involve group discussions, research and planning prior to trips, focusing on building the confidence of participants to fully participate in the experiences on offer, using and practicing English in everyday situations, acquiring vocabulary and ideas for future class-room based activities with related, Creative English revision around related themes.  

We are really excited about this new project as it will provide an opportunity for participants to interact, make friends and experience cultural UK heritage and nature, enabling participants to better integrate and access the life of the whole community around them. Moreover, this project will also enable the local community itself to move forward in a positive way, following the devastating fire of February, 2017, offering the opportunity for growth, change and engagement across the community.

Only a few months following the previous post from November, 2016, a devastating fire reduced the huge 800 capacity, Victorian Ascension Church and our beautiful Paradise Garden to a ruin in an arson attack on February 13th, 2017. The blaze could be seen for miles across the City of Manchester, with fire-fighters battling the fire for hours to gain control, however, only parts of the stone shell, columns and some stone carvings remained of the church, with the Paradise Garden also decimated and ruined by huge amounts of water and the many fire fighters and equipment needed to stop the blaze.

However, the day after the fire it was discovered that all of our bee-hives and colonies of bees within were unharmed, sheltered behind the high apiary fence and poplar trees in the corner of the Paradise Garden. The bee-hives were quickly re-homed within the allotments belonging to our collaborative partner The Irwell Valley Sustainable Communities Trust. The fact that they had survived the terrible blaze provided a sign of hope to the devastated community, particularly those involved in our Paradise Garden.

The fire made national news the following day, with a huge outcry from the local community to rebuild the church, particularly from residents, volunteers and parishioners who worshipped at church and accessed the various community activities and volunteer initiatives, with interest and support also flooding in from churches across the UK and from people of other faiths and no faith. It was initially feared that the church would have to be demolished, however, The Diocese of Manchester and Ecclesiastical Insurance responded positively to this huge, public outcry from the local community to rebuild the iconic much-loved, local landmark and well used community facility, with Architects Buttress appointed to take on the rebuilding of the Grade II listed building.

After an initial phase of assessment to identify what remained in terms of architectural features or artefacts that had historic and social significance, these items were conserved and the building stabilised. During 2018 the work to rebuild the roof and masonry repair work was begun with the work set to continue into 2019 / 2020. However, by the end of 2019 the work will begin on the interior of the church and the current hope is that the work will be finished in time for the church to re-open sometime in 2020.

Throughout the Summer months our Paradise Garden continued to bloom with many more of the bulbs and seeds we planted earlier in the Winter and Spring months bringing forth beautiful flowers including poppies, tulips, wall flowers, bluebells. The cherry tree and apple trees that are situated on the South side of the church also bloomed much more profusely than in previous years.

Our volunteers found that it is hard to keep a balance between doing the rewarding and creative jobs such as planting and landscaping that bring the garden forward and continue developing the vision of a ‘Paradise Garden’ and the more mundane jobs which must be done in order to maintain the appearance of the garden and keep it free from weeds.  However, the volunteers managed to carry out some heavy landscaping tasks alongside the everyday jobs such as weeding, mowing and pruning etc! Volunteers particularly enjoyed getting involved in the weaving of our living willow arch way that covers the disabled access ramp.

Watch This!  Volunteer Interviews

Some thoughts and feedback on their volunteering experience from volunteers Scott and Subhan and some exciting news on their upcoming plans for future work and employment.

Creating a tiny part of English Countryside

Our aim is to create a multi-faith, contemporary Paradise Garden which draws on the rich heritage and symbolism of traditional Paradise Gardens and yet also endeavours to reassemble the natural mosaic of indigenous landscape features, plants and habitats that still exist in the pockets of wild nature in our English countryside. In addition to the many fruit trees, herbs and wild flowers that have been planted over the past five years, the volunteers planted many new additions to the South Side of the church this year including many different species that would be found in native meadows and encourage bees and other insects that contribute to the health and vitality of the garden.

Varieties of hardy, perennials that are indigenous to the UK planted include the attractive thistle ‘Cirsium  Rivulare’, the wood sage ‘Trevor’s Blue Wonder’,  the ornamental clover ‘Triffolium Rubers’, the beautiful ‘Helenium’ which is part of the sunflower family, ‘Monarda’ or Elsie’s Lavender’ and the columbine flower ‘Aquilegia Vulgaris’.

We also planted some other varieties that are natural wildflower species but are actually indigenous to Canada and the U.S.A. such as Phlox Paniculata and Achillea Flipendulina or ‘Gold Plate’ or the ‘Thalictrum Flavum’ or Tukker Princess’ which is indigenous to Russia.

The organic vegetable garden also needed plenty of work to keep it weeded with plenty of watering needed during the sunny spells. Lewis’s bean patch needed various larger stakes putting in for the beans to climb up as they grew taller and taller!

The laurel trees and other large shrubs that were planted in February to cover the view from the walkway to our apiary also thrived over the summer months and volunteers could see the hard work they had done some six months ago was now paying off!

Due to a super mild winter our bees only needed to have a very short period of a few months when the weather was too cold for going out ‘foraging’ and by April we could see plenty of activity and the numbers of bees in the colony began to grow and grow!  We also welcomed many new volunteers onto the bee-keeping programme in April and we soon had a regular Saturday morning group of many different ages. Here’s some of the group getting to grips with the basics…

“I got involved as I wanted to learn something new and it is so interesting to see how busy they are and learn how complex their systems are!”  Sophie

“I feel very excited and happy to be so close to the colony” Narendra

“It was really interesting and exciting seeing the hive with all the bees flying around and seeing larvae in the cells and where the queen bee was.” Nathan

Our practical rolling programme includes the below aspects and apart from the honey extraction and pest management (which are both autumn/winter tasks) our new bee-keepers started to get to grips with the tasks right away.

The life cycle of the honey bee

Health and nutrition for the colony

Tools and safety awareness

Hive assembly and maintenance

Open-hive demonstrations and inspections

Pests and integrated pest management

The Bee Hive

The first task for our volunteers was getting to grips with the layout and different parts of the bee hive which was accomplished by repeated demonstrations and studying learning resources developed for the purpose. The modern hive has a self-spacing, ‘movable frames’ arranged side by side across the width of a rectangular box, which allow the bees to be ‘managed’ so that maximum amounts of honey can be produced and then easily extracted. Modern hives consist of:

•  Outer cover: provides weather protection.

• Inner cover: provides separation from an overly hot or cold outer cover and can be used as a shelf for feeding.

• Honey super: usually shorter than the brood box, this is the uppermost box where honey is stored.

• Queen excluder: provides a selective barrier inside the beehive that allows worker bees but not the larger queens and drones to traverse the barrier.

• Frames and foundation: wooden frames with wax sheets with honeycomb impressions where the bees build their wax honey combs.

• Brood box or Deep Super: the lowest box of the hive where the Queen Bee lays her eggs.

• Bottom board: this has an entrance for the bees to get into the hive.

• Hive stand- providing a landing board for the bees that helps to protect the bottom board from rot and cold transfer.

During April and May the Queen Bee lays eggs during the day and night, laying over 2000 eggs a day, more than her own body weight! With the brood nest expanding the colony grows bigger every day and the bees begin to fly out and ‘forage’ for nectar when the weather becomes warmer. Many important plants for the bees come into flower in May in our Paradise Garden including Fruit Blossom, Dandelions and Daffodils and the bee hive explodes with activity as the bees fly out to ‘forage’ and bring back nectar.

The hives need to be inspected every week to check that the Queen Bee has plenty of room to lay in the brood box, adding another if necessary.

Photos of open hive demonstrations in April & May, 2016

It is also the time when the swarming instinct is at its highest so it is time for the our Bee Keepers to be ahead of the bee’s requirements for honey storage by placing another super on as soon as a super is half full of bees and comb, especially if the weather is good! Volunteers learn how to inspect the hives and put second and third honey supers over the first during May so that they can be filled with the surplus honey that the bees are making – it is the season of plenty!

Watch This!

A short film of open hive inspections undertaken in April / May, 2016, demonstrating to new volunteers how to open up the hive and what to look for…

In early March when the weather was still pretty cold and dreary some wonderful volunteers from The Broughton Trust with some of our regular families who volunteer with our community events came and helped out for a full day of job…. mending the fences around our bee hive apiary and clearing all the weeds and winter debris. We all planted some more Spring bulbs and shrubs following on from those planted during February. Great job guys…. Spring is round the corner!

Then April and May brought us some wonderful warm sunshine and we were quickly inundated with jobs to do so as everything began to grow – particularly the grass as mowing the ample lawns quickly becomes a weekly chore throughout the summer months as it grows so fast!  Preparing our raised beds ready for sowing seeds and planting them up with veg was also the major big job of the Spring….digging over the beds and mixing in manure and liquid see-weed plant food – a natural organic fertilizer that helps to bind soil together and contains all the nutrients, trace elements and amino acids that plants need.

We welcomed some new volunteers over the Spring months and quickly had a good team working hard every week at our regular gardening sessions. Here’s some of the team in action! Aladjin, Kayleigh, Lewis, Kokilamala, Prabash, Shiymali, Scott, Mohammed and Subhan – thanks for all your hard work!

The next job was getting some vegetables planted in our organic garden which every year are enjoyed by our volunteers, parishioners and friends of The Ascension Church.  This year we planted potatoes, runner (climbing) beans, tomatoes, cabbages, lettuces and chilli peppers! Here is Lewis and his runner bean bed, at only 9 years old he has been responsible for germinating the beans in ‘root-trainer books’ which he looked after at home before planting them out, watering and tending to the beans to make sure they clung to the stakes that he put in the raised bed for them to climb up – great job Lewis!

Many of the Spring Bulbs which were planted back in January and February came into bloom and our Paradise Garden was awash with colour! Bluebells, Narcissus, Daffodils and Tulips and much more to come over the summer….

Our collaborative project with The Irwell Valley Sustainable Communities Project and The Salford Bee Collective enabled us to install our first bee hive in the Spring of 2014, with training which enabled volunteers to gain understanding of the life cycle of the honey bee and related aspects of bee-keeping and managing hives.

The bee-keeping volunteer initiative has since become very popular, with volunteers gaining a wealth of expertise and knowledge from their involvement in our practical activities with a second hive installed in the Summer of 2014 and over 15 jars of honey sold at the 2014 Christmas Fair as well as at other parish and volunteer events.

WATCH THIS! A collaborative project with Master’s Degree Media Studies Students at Salford University also got under way during the autumn and winter of 2014, producing a short film which describes how important bees are to the natural world and local ecosystems as well as how important the keeping of bees has become to the local community and volunteers at the Paradise Garden.

Introducing Our Bee-Keeping Trainer

David completed our ‘taster’ bee-keeping training course in July 2014 and became a very dedicated volunteer, subsequently taking a key role in the management of our hives as well as acquiring his own hives at his allotments shortly after starting volunteering with the project. Additional, more in depth training was enabled by funding secured through the European Social Fund capacity building grant so that David could undertake additional in-depth training at Tiger Hall in Shropshire providing the additional knowledge that he required to deliver bee-keeping training to a small group of participants during 2015.

David’s knowledge of bees and how to keep them now seems to be astronomical!  Following the positive feedback and involvement from those who took part in the bee-keeping activities led by David in 2015 we have promoted the bee-keeping to a much wider audience for the start of the 2016 season and hope to get many more people involved in the fascinating world of bee-keeping during the 2016 calendar year -seen here below…

December 2015 : A summary of ‘where the bees are up to’!

WATCH THIS!!! A short film capturing the final hive inspection of 2015 and interviews with David and other volunteers about the health of the colony as the hives were shut down in December 2015 and the hopes and aspirations of those involved for 2016.