Summer Gardening Events

Your Garden Questions Answered & Plant Sale
Sunday 30th June, Free
Plant Sale: 2pm - 4.30pm
Your Garden Questions Answered: 2:30pm - 3:30pm

Run by The Higgins garden volunteers, enjoy a summer plant sale that is guaranteed to delight visitors. Bring in all your gardening questions to our expert panel in an informal gardener's question time with Jane Perrone and Kathy and Simon Brown. Be inspired and pick up practical tips to achieve your ideal garden this summer. 

You can also send in your Garden Questions for the panel to answer by emailing Victoria.Partridge@bedford.gov.uk. The answers will be posted on social media at a later date. 

Funds raised from the plant sale will help to improve the Castle Gardens and support the continuing work of garden volunteers.

Garden Tours - Transforming the Gardens at The Higgins Bedford
Wednesday 3rd July, 11:15am
Free - Booking Essential

Explore the Castle Gardens in a free, half an hour tour and discover more about the volunteer-led project to rejuvenate the gardens and grounds. 

Supported by SDC Community Fund, established by SDC Builders Ltd

Edward Bawden at his Saffron Walden home sitting on a
Bilston Cast Iron Garden Seat, 1980

Lunchtime Lecture: Edward Bawden – Art and Gardening
Thursday 4th July, 12pm - 12:30pm, 
£3 (Concessions £2.50) - Booking Essential

Join Keeper of Fine and Decorative Art, Victoria Partridge, for a lunchtime lecture exploring Edward Bawden’s favourite gardens.






Booking is essential for the garden tour and Edward Bawden lunchtime lecture. To book your place, please telephone 01234 718618 or email thehiggins@bedford.gov.uk 

Family Fun this Weekend!

There's lots to do this weekend! Don't miss out on all the great events happening for all the family to enjoy. 

This Noisy Isle
Saturday 22nd June
Performances from 10am - 3pm
Adults: £8 / Child: £6

Get involved in This Noisy Isle, an outdoor treasure-hunt style performance for 7-11 year olds and their families, inspired by William Shakespeare’s The Tempest. This interactive adventure explores the refugee crisis in a new and inventive way and gives viewers the chance to solve puzzles, meet mysterious characters, navigate the choppy seas and more.

Book Tickets Here.

Working in Collaboration with Spun Glass Theatre and The Place Theatre.

Windrush Family Day & Global Kitchen
Saturday 22nd June
12pm - 5pm, Free Entry
Held at A Different Brew Cafe

Celebrate National Windrush Day and Bedford's Windrush Generation with a day of face painting, music, folk songs, dancing, dominoes, food and Windrush stories.

Working in Collaboration with Arise In Bloom, Nubian Teachings, Friends Of Refugees, Urban Adventures (Natures Gifts), Bedfordshire Opportunities for Learning Disabilities (B.O.L.D), Retired Caribbean Nurses of Bedfordshire (RCNA).

Round and Round the Garden Family Afternoon
Sunday 23rd June
2pm - 5pm, Free Entry

Enjoy an afternoon of garden themed activities for families, view the Round and Round the Garden exhibition and discover the Book Nook and Wynding Wixam Tree. Explore with Kevin the Platypus on his new trail. Take part in art and crafts workshops including Scratch Art, Drop-in Floating Flowers and Seed Bombs with Jane Perrone.

Places are limited for Seed Bomb workshops. To book, tel 01234 718618 / e-mail thehiggins@bedford.gov.uk.

Celebrating Refugee Week 2019

Refugee Week is a nationwide programme of arts, cultural and educational events that celebrate the contribution of refugees in the UK and encourages an improved understanding between communities.

Discover stories of displacement, explore the lives of refugees and the people who welcomed them throughout the generations, based on this year’s theme – You, Me and Those Who Came Before.

Refugee Week Launch

Saturday 15th June

11am – 4pm, Free

Celebrate the beginning of Refugee Week with live music, talks, poetry, creative workshops and stalls.

The 25th Commemoration of the Rwandan Genocide Against the Tutsi
Saturday 15th June
2pm - 5:30pm, Free

Hear stories at the Urumuri commemoration for the 25th anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide against the Tutsi.

Explore Kwibuka Rwanda – Remebering Rwanda, an exhibition developed by Dr Julia Viebach and Pitt Rivers Museum that looks at the memorials marking the sites where the genocide took place.

Working in collaboration with URUMURI Association

Knit-a-thon

Tuesday 18th June

11am – 4pm, Free

Get creative and meet other like-minded crafters to knit and crochet items such as hats, socks, gloves, and blankets for refugees across the globe. All items will be distributed by UK charity Knit for Peace.

To register interest or to support the event with some knitting to be delivered, please email gemma.hutton@bedford.gov.uk.

Pop-up Museum #You, me and those who came before

Wednesday 19th June

11am – 3pm, Free

Bedford Central Library

Bring the stories and objects that you, your parents and grandparents have brought with them from their home countries to share and celebrate at this Pop-Up Museum.

What favourite things did you, your parents or grandparents, bring with them to start life in the UK?

This Noisy Isle

Saturday 22nd June

Perfromances from 10am - 3pm

Adult: £8 / Child £6

Inspired by William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, enjoy This Noisy Isle, an outdoor treasure-hunt style performance for 7 to 11 year olds and their families.

This interactive adventure explores the refugee crisis in a new and inventive way and gives viewers the chance to solve puzzles, meet mysterious characters, navigate the choppy seas and more.

Each performance is limited to 16 patrons - Book Tickets Here.

Working in Collaboration with Spun Glass Theatre and The Place Bedford.

Windrush Family Day & Global Kitchen

Saturday 22nd June

12pm - 5pm, Free Entry

 A Different Brew Cafe

Celebrate National Windrush Day and Bedford's Windrush Generation with a day of face painting, music, folk songs, dancing, dominoes, food and Windrush stories.

Working in Collaboration with Arise In Bloom, Nubian Teachings, Friends Of Refugees, Urban Adventures (Natures Gifts), Bedfordshire Opportunities for Learning Disabilities (B.O.L.D), Retired Caribbean Nurses of Bedfordshire (RCNA)

Platyfacts - Meet Kevin

Meet Kevin - he’s a duck-billed platypus. At the Higgins Bedford, Kevin is a much loved part of the collections. Platypuses are a bit special as there isn’t any living animal that’s very much like them at all.  Every now and then we'll post a fascinating fact about platypuses like Kevin. Read on for our very first platyfact. What’s in a name? ‘Platypus’ comes from a scientific name that’s not in use any more, meaning ‘flat-footed’ and 'duck-like’. The scientific name is now Ornithorhynchus anatinus, which means ‘bird-snouted duck-like’. The plural of platypus is ‘platypuses’ or ‘platypodes’. Technically it’s wrong to say 'platypi', because the name platypus is of Greek origin, not Latin. And just for the record, there’s no formally agreed name for the babies. Some people call them ‘puggles’ but that was originally the name given to baby echidnas. Other people call them ‘platypups’. Either way they’re very cute… Check back soon for our next platyfact.

Exhibition Talks & Tours

Edward Bawden: Home and Abroad Gallery Tour
Wednesday 5th June
12pm - 12:30pm
£5.90, (£4.70 Concessions)

Join exhibition curator Victoria Partridge, for a lunchtime tour of Edward Bawden: Home and Abroad and discover how Bawden's immediate surroundings and overseas travels have influenced his art.

Image: Edward Bawden (1903—1989) Edward Bawden in Portugal —Lisbon, Lithograph after linocut, 1962 ©The Edward Bawden Estate.

Rise and Fall of the Bedfordshire Brickworks by Richard Manning

Wednesday 12th June, 2pm
£5.90, (£4.70 Concessions)

Explore the Rise and Fall of Bedfordshire’s Brickworks with Richard Manning, a former London Brick Company employee of 40 years and Managing Director until 1995. Richard will be sharing his memories of the brickmaking industries in Bedford.

Image: 'Fuelling the brick firing kilns, London Brick Company, Stewartby', 1952 © The Mutual Security Agency

Lunchtime Lecture with Professor Christiana Payne – ‘Round and Round the Garden’
Wednesday 19th June
12pm - 1pm, Free

Join Professor of History of Art at Oxford Brookes University, Christiana Payne, for a lunchtime lecture of the Round and Round the Garden exhibition. Explore our human fascination with gardens and gardening and how they have provided inspiration for artists including, Pre-Raphaelite John Everett Millais, Walter Sickert and Joan Eardley.

This lecture is sponsored by Oxford Brookes University.

Booking is essential for these talks & tours. To book your place, please telephone 01234 718618 or email thehiggins@bedford.gov.uk.