Ashton Hayes and Tarvin Flower Club. March meeting

Another evening of fun and laughter was enjoyed by the flower club members this week.
Judith Windsor and Doreen Pritchard are well known to us in Tarvin as they teach our flower class. Their demonstration title was "Our Village" – referring to Upton-by- Chester where Judith has lived virtually all her life and Doreen for over 50 years.

Judith's 1st design represented The Mill which has been a feature of Upton since 1775. The sails were removed in the 1920's and after use as a bakery the bakery tower was demolished in 1979 by the famous Fred Dibnah. It has been a private house for many years. Her design was a Hogarth curve with the addition of sails, in yellow and white flowers.

Doreen, a former florist, produced design 2 whilst Judith told us about the history of the old village school -St. Mary's – built in 1843. It is now used as a pre-school. Upton now has a total of 5 schools. The arrangement was L-shaped and incorporated the colours of the beads of the abacus which formed part of their display.

The Zoo was depicted by Judith. We heard of its history and that it is now one of the top 15 zoos in the world. Judith passed on her childhood memories of living very close to the zoo. Her design looked tropical and was displayed attractively with zoo animals and garden borders.

For design 4 Doreen had an attractive black metal stand shaped like church windows and representing Holy Ascension Church, built in 1854. Both the church and the school were built using local sandstone. Her 2 matching designs in pink looked good when displayed in front of the windows. Also displayed was a piece of sandstone depicting the Plague Stone to be seen in the churchyard.

Judith and Doreen worked together for the 2 final designs, both using urns but showing very different uses. They were remembering the Village Hall, built in 1928 and used for various types of meetings during the decades. For the last 57 years it has been used monthly by Upton-by- Chester Flower club. Judith's urn contained pink lilies and purple tulips with large foliage whereas Doreen produced a dome design with roses and tulips in tones of red and yellow and multi coloured mindolino sticks.

After the demonstration the members enjoyed homemade cakes produced by our Chairman.

The meeting next month is on April 12th when Louise Jones will demonstrate on the topic "Inspired By---" in the Edna Rose Room at 7-30. Visitors are always welcome.

Ed Click on photographs to enlarge.