Station gardening at Meldreth, Shepreth and Foxton has been going strong for nearly ten years, thanks to village volunteers as well as a regular stream of Duke of Edinburgh Bronze Award students from Melbourn Village College and further afield.
We were delighted to kick off the spring on Saturday March 12 with a visit by the Meldreth Veg Club to Meldreth Station for a big clear-up of the garden round the back of the station. It was the biggest group of volunteers ever at Meldreth Station, and the skip kindly provided free of charge by Amey, the County Council’s waste contractor, was filled up in no time.
One of the Meldreth Veg Club members is a resident of the new flats which have been built next to the station. Like others without private gardens, the communal station garden offers a chance for anyone to enjoy being outside and getting stuck in with gardening – and to make new friends in the wider community at the same time.
Gardens promote well-kept station environments and platform tubs offer a cheery send-off or welcome home to work and school commuters. We’ve been rewarded at both Meldreth and Shepreth Stations with minimal parking charges or free parking, in return for the year-round tending of station gardens.
We really hope to encourage anyone who’d like to get involved in station gardening to get in touch – please contact railusergroup@gmail.com. Equally, we encourage anyone with a journey to make to Cambridge, Royston, Ely, Stevenage, London or anywhere else on the King’s Cross line to do so by train! We are working toward a return of half-hourly all day services, hopefully in May, but need to see ridership figures go up. Please give the train a try!
