Latest news with #AshleyCourt
The Guardian
3 days ago
- General
- The Guardian
Country diary: A paradise inside four walls
Any garden is a special thing, but a walled garden? That's something truly special: an outside that is an inside. When Tara Fraser and Nigel Jones first came to view this semi-derelict Regency house in 2016, they had no idea Ashley Court included a walled garden. 'We saw this wooden door and pushed it open – and there it was. Just like The Secret Garden. Total jungle.' Nine summers and countless hours of labour later, and it is transformed. Nigel opens the door; I follow him and have to stop at the threshold as I catch sight of it. The garden is Tardis-like, bigger on the inside somehow, and bounded by high walls – stone on the outside and lined with brick – in a loose squareish shape that undulates with the lift and dip of the land. The veg beds and paths give it the feel of a patchwork coverlet laid over a sleeping giant. 'No self-respecting Victorian kitchen garden would be so ridiculously slopey,' saya Tara. It's one of the reasons why they believe the garden predates the house to before the 1800s. Not only do the high walls act as a physical barrier against deer and rabbits, they retain the heat and shelter the plants from the wind, such that the garden sits in its own microclimate. In winter, the cold air can escape through a rectangular frost window at the lower end (it pours out, apparently, like a white ghost, into the surrounding woodland). Hard to imagine on a day like this, with bees and demoiselles zipping about, buttercups shining, bathed in warm spring sunshine. Beans have begun spiralling their way up bamboo wigwams, gooseberries are as hard as marbles but growing plumper, more translucent every day. Ancient espaliered pear trees reach out to each other with gnarled fingers. Clumps of chives have gone to flower, their purple tufted hairdos like something out of Dr Seuss. Filled with all of these photosynthesisers feasting on the sun, this garden really is paradise. The word itself comes from the Avestan word pairidaēza, meaning walled enclosure. How fitting that the walled garden is both how we imagine heaven, and the very place on earth where that image took root. Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian's Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at and get a 15% discount
BBC News
23-05-2025
- Health
- BBC News
Lincoln carehome closure would 'destroy community', resident says
A woman who has lived in a care home for 26 years says her community would be "completely destroyed" if it was 66, lives at Ashley Court Residential Care Home in Lincoln, built for adults with physical disabilities, and is one of 15 residents living with uncertainty over the future of the provider Amplius informed residents and family members that it would be ending its contract earlier this said it was doing "everything it could to find an alternative provider" so that residents would not have to be separated and moved elsewhere. Jean, who caught an autoimmune disease in her mid 30s which left her in a wheelchair, moved into Ashley Court in 1999. She said news of the contract ending "came out of the blue"."The fear is we will all be moved to different places but with people we don't know."The community we've built up would be completely destroyed.""Although the description is residential home, it's very much home for all of us who live there, not just somewhere to sleep," she said. 'A beautiful place' Resident Stuart, 57, had a blood transfusion when he was a child which left him needing to be in care for the rest of his has been at Ashley Court since the age of 19, making him the longest resident of 38 mum, Stephanie, 84, said: "How can they just move him when he's lived there all that while? Everybody is so happy there, it's a beautiful place."Resident Mark has lived at the care home for four years and said: "It's always been a family." Phil Hardy, chief operations officer for Amplius, said it had paused the 90-day notice given to LCC to end its contract at the care home after searching for another provider for "more than a year".Mr Hardy said: "I can reassure residents and their families that we're doing everything we can to find an alternative provider that will take on the care contract so that residents can continue to live there."The most important thing is that the needs of the residents are fully assessed and met, and that we continue to carefully listen to and consider their views." Martin Samuels, executive director of adult care and community wellbeing at LCC, said the council "continues to explore potential solutions to keep the home open," with support from the Lincolnshire Care added: "We realise this is a difficult and stressful time for the residents and their families, and we will keep them informed as progress is made." Listen to highlights from Lincolnshire on BBC Sounds, watch the latest episode of Look North or tell us about a story you think we should be covering here.
