Park Life

Recently renovated with the aid of a Heritage Lottery Fund grant, St Leonard's Gardens offer a tranquil oasis in the Maze Hill area of St Leonards, with views to the sea. The scheme has been designed to provide colour all year round with a mixture of herbaceous plants, shrubs, bulbs and trees clustered together.

A central feature is the ornamental pond with water lilies. The park is also potentially a rich habitat for wildlife. There is an opportunity for local business and individuals to get involved with encouraging wildlife back into the area.

We are collaborating with the Friends of St Leonards Gardens to make and install the ideal homes for many species of birds, bats, small mammals and many types of friendly insects like bees, butterflies and moths.


Perfect places to roost, nest, feed & breed

The Concept:

Local Business Sponsorship for Local Park Wildlife Project with Local Wood Recyling project providing training and work for local unemployed people.

A sponsorship scheme was set up to encourage local people and businesses to get involved. Each sponsor paid for a numbered bird box whose location is marked on a map of the Gardens with their name listed as its sponsor. We are monitoring the project and there is also a plan to have a study centre in the South Lodge providing information about the project for use by local schools and environmental groups.

Birds have different nesting and territorial requirements and by introducing a range of different styles and sizes of boxes it will be possible to attract and encourage certain less common species to nest in St Leonard's Gardens. Local ornithologists have pinpointed those most likely to be attracted and a range of bird and bat boxes have been specially designed for them by H&BWRP's Stewart Walton.

The project has captured everyone's imagination and been such a success that more than 50 sponsored boxes were put up in early February.



Our aim is to provide a blueprint for similar projects all round the country and nest box selection packs will soon be available from our site. The new designs have proved very popular and we now have two of them for sale on our Shop page.