Heritage Craft
To connect the garden to the building and involve the wider community in the refurbishment and National Lottery Heritage Fund project, Growing Sudley worked with designer and horticulturist Laura Naylor to create 500 hand-made ceramic tiles for the interior spaces of the new therapy and wellbeing centre.
Ceramics is now classed as a heritage craft and industrial ceramics is classed as an ‘at-risk’ heritage craft. Laura led 17 workshops held in the garden with 197 people of all ages and abilities making tiles exploring decoration using foraged botanicals from the Walled Garden and wider Sudley Estate. Within the sessions people learned about the value of wildflowers (formerly known as weeds!) and biodiversity in urban environments. They also learned about some of the properties of the plants including some botany and herbalism.
Botanical tiles being made by community members using locally foraged flora.
The 500 tiles have been installed across the refurbished changing rooms building, bringing the garden and building projects together in a celebration of community, traditional skills and nature. The finished tiles are a triumph and create a beautiful welcome to each room in the building.
Special thanks to Liverpool Hope University for use of their kiln for this project and the lovely Rooz Rajaie and Tom King for helping on the project, and all the volunteers who helped!
Botanical tiles displayed in the Changing Rooms therapy rooms