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Bridewell Gardens: Mental Health Recovery

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Bridewell Gardens: Mental Health Recovery

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The official page for Bridewell Organic Gardens. Please feel free to post questions, comments and photos.

Bridewell is a mental health recovery charity using gardening to support adults recovering from severe and enduring mental health problems.

28/10/2026

The third cohort of Bridewell gardeners are currently doing the ‘Build a Bike’ project at the wonderful Windrush Bike Project in Witney – a community bike workshop. Gardeners learn to put together a bike and basic maintenance and at the end of the project they will walk away with new skills and their very own bike.

They also offer us a ‘Rusty Riders’ fortnightly ride out on bikes to boost cycling confidence in the safety of a group.

To date 12 gardeners have taken up this remarkable course. We are delighted to say that they have funding secured for the next ‘Build a Bike’ course so we will be able to offer this to more gardeners in January. Thank you so much to the team for this amazing opportunity offered free to Bridewell gardeners.

19/10/2026

Jobs in the woodland this autumn: clearing branches and twigs, preparing gateposts for an entrance into the woodland through the allotment garden and planning ahead for a firepit, seated area and a path to weave through the trees.

Over time we’ll be introducing woodland flowers and mushrooms to improve biodiversity. A shady and sheltered place to work in the summer or in the rain, the atmosphere surrounded by trees is unique.

12/10/2026

The relaxing and therapeutic effects of gardening and being in nature – watching the changes, lowering stress levels and having hope for the future once again– are now well documented in many scientific research studies.

If you’re interested in reading more about the amazing effects of therapeutic gardening you might want to read the wonderful book “The Well Gardened Mind” by Bridewell patron, Sue Stuart-Smith. It’s a fascinating overview of many similar, exciting projects happening world-wide and is very accessible.

We see and hear it anecdotally every week at Bridewell from our gardeners but it’s wonderful to have this impact confirmed by rigorous academic research.

05/10/2026

Missed our latest newsletter? It’s a corker – packed with really exciting news! You can have a read through here: www.bridewellgardens.org/news/autumn-newsletter-2026/

01/10/2026

Our orchard sunflowers are beaming — and so are we. We’ve just received wonderful news from The National Lottery – a grant of £285,000 over three years to help Bridewell grow beyond our walls!

This means that we can progress one of our long-held strategies to bring some of Bridewell's magic into the communities where people live and reach more people who may be unable to access the recovery service at our walled garden site.

So, what is the funding for? And what are the reasons for doing this now? We've listed some FAQs - https://www.bridewellgardens.org/news/national-lottery-news-2026/ - to help you understand more about this important funding and what it means for the Bridewell community as well as the wider community.

It's very early days with lots of planning to do, but we'll keep you up to date as the project proceeds in the coming months.

And while this grant supports our new initiatives in the wider community, we still need donations to keep our walled garden recovery service thriving — a place “with muddy paths, patient people growing things — and absolutely no pressure to pretend everything’s fine when it isn’t.”

29/09/2026

We thought you might like to see the progress of the building work within the walled garden as it has occurred over the last few days – it is moving so quickly. We are getting closer to our long-held hopes for a new polytunnel and an open-sided barn.

This week concrete was poured in to provide the base for the new polytunnel and we’re all so excited. In these pics you can also see the beginnings of the open-sided barn with the timbers now put in place.

Exciting times to see these changes finally taking shape. It will have such an impact on the day to day of the recovery service, more practical spaces for growing plants, more suitable covered work areas for sunny or rainy days. Enormous thanks go out to The Wolfson Foundation and the Bernard Sunley Foundation for their grants for this project.

11/09/2026

Work is underway! Thank you to everyone who helped us prepare, clearing out the old sheds, moving plants and our events materials. Building work has finally started and this space is being prepared ready for a new open-sided barn – a covered working area we can use all year round.

We’ll also be saying goodbye to the old fruit cage as we make space for our second polytunnel. We’re looking forward to having more space for plant propagation - for veg and flowers we use in the gardens, for plants we sell at our open days, and plants we propagate for Long Mead’s water meadow restoration project.

This project can go ahead thanks to the generous support of The Wolfson Foundation and the Bernard Sunley Foundation.

We’ll keep you up to date with progress!

09/09/2026

A bumper grape harvest yesterday and a real celebration of another year’s hard work caring for the vines at Bridewell. A HUGE Thank You to everyone who helped us zip along the rows through the vineyard - we finished picking in time for lunch.

We were a cheerful bunch despite the soggy weather and warmed up afterwards with a ‘Bridewell special’ chunky soup, bread and cheese.

The grapes are now safely with our w**emaker **eproject being turned into a traditional sparkling w**e. Look out for the 2026 vintage when it is ready in a few years’ time to sample the effect this extraordinary weather had on the grapes and the flavour of the w**e.

It’s definitely harvest season!

02/09/2026

Calling all current & former Bridewell gardeners. Our grape harvest will take place on Tuesday 8th September.

If you’d like to help with the harvest we’d love to hear from you! Please get in touch with the Garden Team to let them know that you’d like to attend.

01/09/2026

Last chance to come and visit Bridewell this year at our final Open Day of the year this Sunday.

We’ll be throwing the gates open to the public once again from 11am to 4pm with our usual pop-up café serving delicious treats and our produce stall selling all manner of Bridewell products including our acclaimed sparkling w**e.

The gardens are still looking lovely and been revived by the recent rain we’ve had. Come and find out for yourselves and do tell your friends!

Dogs are also welcome on a lead. We’d love to welcome you all here.

Address

The Walled Garden, Wilcote
Witney
OX73DT

Opening Hours

Monday	9am - 4pm
Tuesday	9am - 4pm
Wednesday	9am - 4pm
Thursday	9am - 4pm
Friday	9am - 5pm

Telephone

+441993259059

Website

http://www.bridewellgardens.org/

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