After decades of neglect, Wallinger’s Walk and graveyard had become unkempt and scruffy. Now, thanks to the work of volunteers and funds from many sources pulled in via the Hastings Regeneration Partnership, the area has been transformed. Wallingers Walk and Graveyard (off Millward Road) is now a beautiful, peaceful place that you choose to walk through or rest a while.
There is much more to the Wallingers Walk and graveyard story than conservation. The project has involved two local groups of working together in a series of environment improvement projects. PACT Community Projects has been responsible for co-ordinating a team of people with learning disabilities and mental health issues. Hastings Trust has been co-ordinating the actual conservation work and volunteers.
The first job on the graveyard was to reunite the portions of vandalised tombs, create a welcoming space and restore the graves. The lives of the Victorians buried on the graveyard were researched so descendants could be found. A log of those interred and the memorial inscriptions found were then detailed in the fascinating book ‘Monumental Inscriptions Wallingers Walk Hastings’, copies of which are available at Hastings Trust in Robertson Street and the Hastings Information Centre, Queens Square.
Ivy was stripped from the historic sandstone walls and twelve of the fifty local volunteers were trained in using original materials and methods. These skills are rare, but necessary, since lime mortar allows walls to ‘breathe’, preventing trapped moisture damaging the face of the sandstone blocks. Colourful new borders have been planted, trees pruned, earth levelled and nourished, grass re-seeded and iron railings reinstated at the entrance.
The highlight of the two years work on the graveyard came to fruition in the autumn, when the asphalt patchwork paths were resurfaced with a gravel look, which dramatically transformed the area. Finishing touches will include a series of explanatory plaques, a lamp post to match one which would have been there historically as well as the conservation of more walls and the Wallingers family tomb.
Many of the people working on the project have found something they are really good at and enjoy. As a result of the project, Carl Usher, who participates through ‘Workability’, is now studying for an NVQ 1 in Horticulture one day a week at Plumpton Agricultural College. Paul Hayward, project worker for the Workability team, says,
"Carl and all in the team have shown enormous commitment to the project. We are delighted that Carl has decided to build on his horticultural skills. Carl is very proficient in many of the NVQ 1 supervised skills so we are already able to put him to unsupervised work, which contributes to his portfolio for the NVQ 2, next year."
The project has now run for three of its eight years and already it has given local people conservation, horticultural and recording skills, work, exercise, community spirit, understanding as well as job and further education opportunities. If you would like to get involved, please contact either James Rose at Hastings Trust on 446373 or Paul Hayward of PACT on 01273 828450.
Hastings Regeneration Partnership brings together the voluntary, public and private sectors to spend £26 million Single Regeneration Budget money provided through South East England Development Agency.
With matched funding, the 100 local projects pull in a total of £128 million for social, economic and physical regeneration.
The Partnership can be contacted on 781781.
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This page last updated: 14/04/2003