Craig-y-Nos - Criw Craggy meet up
Written by Tir Coed / Friday 23 March 2018
Recently Angie and I visited Craig-y-nos Country Park in the Breacon Beacons to meet with Criw Craggy, a group that are in the process of setting up a community garden.
Craig-y-Nos is well known for its castle made famous by the former opera singer Adelina Patti who purchased the property and grounds in 1878. In recent years however it has been converted into a hotel and wedding venue with the adjoining land being split between the owners of the castle and the country park. The land is varied with much of it being covered in trees and divided by two converging rivers (Llynfell & Tawe). The visitor centre is located beside the castle and next to this is the area of land Criw Craggy are hoping to transform.
Criw Craggy are in the process of setting up this community garden where they want to encourage people in the area to grow their own food. This initiative is part of their ethos as they want to nurture and develop a sustainable future for the park. They already put on various activities such as family activity days and arts and crafts (making bat boxes and homes for ducks) but want to go further. They also want to add an element of accreditation to their project so that those attending not only gained skills in food growing and horticulture but also get accreditation. As part of the visit Angie had some brief discussions about how they could develop potential accreditation with some assistance from Tir Coed.
I was very interested in their work since as part of my research I am looking into how Tir Coed could start a similar horticultural project particularly with an element of accreditation and so from my point of view this was a good case study to observe as I could see the project develop from the start.
After a cup of tea the ‘Criw Craggy’ team kindly gave us a tour of the Country Park (including the proposed site of the community garden). It was a really enjoyable day and it was great to spend some time with people so enthusiastic about food growing.
