The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh visited Horatio’s Garden Stoke Mandeville as part of a tour for the National Spinal Injuries Centre’s 80th anniversary celebrations.
Their Royal Highnesses spent time with many people with spinal injuries and some of our volunteers, NHS staff as well as meeting Horatio’s Garden founders Olivia and David Chapple. The Duke toured the garden and The Duchess observed a bulb-planting gardening session with Sebastian and our Head Gardener Amy before Her Royal Highness then planted some paper white daffodil bulbs. Perfectly suited to growing indoors, we will look out for these fragrant flowers to bloom around Christmas!
Sebastian, a medical student who has been rehabilitating at NSIC for eight months said: “The garden has been invaluable for me as somewhere to spend time with my family every day during my long stay and also somewhere that I can have a laugh with my medicine student friends and be normal. It’s also been so helpful for my parents to find a community of people going through the same thing. I was amazed by how much understanding The Duchess of Edinburgh had on what the garden meant to everyone.”
Dr Olivia Chapple, Chair of Trustees of Horatio’s Garden said: “It was wonderful to welcome The Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh to Horatio’s Garden Stoke Mandeville as part of their visit to celebrate 80 years of the pioneering work at the National Spinal Injuries Centre. When we showed the Duchess one of our regular garden therapy sessions, she was so perceptive about the benefits of being in the garden as part of rehabilitation and knowledgeable about the therapeutic effects of gardening.”
Their Royal Highnesses were presented with two symbolic plants from the garden, a Rosa Horatio’s Garden and Aruncus ‘Horatio’, by young patients Ryan and Millie.
The visit was especially poignant as Prince Edward, when Earl of Wessex, unveiled a stone on the site of what was to become a Horatio’s Garden when he met David on a visit to Salisbury District Hospital in 2009.
At that time the garden that Horatio and David were planning was to be called the Jubilee Garden but after Horatio was killed in 2011, staff at the hospital suggested that the garden be called Horatio’s Garden and it opened the following year.
Horatio’s Garden Stoke Mandeville opened in 2018 at the National Spinal Injuries Centre (NSIC) at Stoke Mandeville Hospital. It supports adults and children across the British Isles and their families and friends. The garden was created by RHS Chelsea Gold Medal winner and presenter of BBC Gardeners’ World, Joe Swift.
