A royal visit to Arlington Square

We welcome more and more visitors to the square every day but very few of them arrive accompanied by a Personal Protection Officer, an Assistant Private Secretary, the Representative Deputy Lieutenant for the London Borough of Islington, the Master of the Worshipful Company of Gardeners, the Deputy Mayor of Islington and a bunch of press photographers.

As Patron of the London Gardens Society, His Royal Highness the Earl of Wessex visits three London gardens of special importance every year. This year Arlington Square was chosen as an outstanding public garden worthy of the royal visit. (The other two stops on Prince Edward’s 2014 tour were the private gardens of Lady Mico’s Almhouses in Stepney and St Joseph’s Hospice in Hackney.)

Arlington Association’s chair Gordon McArthur welcomed the Prince along with our secretary and founder Hazel Fletcher and chief community gardener Paul Thompson. They took HRH for a stroll round the square, pointing out plants of note, explaining the transformation we have achieved over the last few years and introducing him to some of our gardening volunteers. Elle Bogle presented the Prince with a jar of Arlington Square rose-petal jam and a pack of Arlington Square notelets.

During the tour and over drinks in the square’s Hub area (water for HRH at his request, wine for the rest of us) Prince Edward chatted about the challenges of gardening in the shade, the huge amount of work it takes to prepare an area for planting and how fresh-picked herbs taste so much better than those bought from the shop. He praised the ‘magnificent’ palm trees at the hub and he observed that our work in the square is clearly making a difference to the whole neighbourhood.