Location: St George’s Hill Surrey, UK.
Guerrilla Gardening: 1 April 2009
On 1 April 1649 on the outskirts of the village of Cobham Gerrard Winstanley led a group up St George’s Hill to plant vegetables on what was common ground - for grazing but not for gardening. It was a response to rising food prices and sense of political injustice. I see this as an early act of guerrilla gardening and find Winstanley’s story inspiring. His political aims went beyond those of most guerrilla gardeners I have met and his legacy lives on within a wide range of movements. By coincidence perhaps, the G20 protests in London took place on the 360th anniversary of this guerrilla gardening but I spotted his name cited as inspiration for the “Black Horse” march from Cannon Street. It made sense to go along, to mark the day, and discuss Winstanley’s ideas. Despite media reports and some brutal incidents elsewhere that day, the march I attended was tense but chatty. I handed out sunflower seeds and discussed guerrilla gardening with all sorts of people who were, there to raise awareness of homelessness, inequitable land distribution, the need for land tax and housing policy. Later in the day Lyla 1046, and Heather 1986 headed for the St George Hill to mark the day and make our mark. A small stone memorial was erected ten years ago in commemoration and we set about sowing a few sunflowers around it. Unfortunately directly opposite this symbolic location was a layby in which a police car was parked. Within a few minutes of a pottering around with trowels and seeds the car drove over to pull in next to us and an officer got out to enquire about our actions. After we had shared our horticultural tips with him he left (but like the officers in London, he refused my gift of sunflower seeds) we continued on towards Redhill Road, which is marked as near the location of Gerrard’s dig in 1649. We planted a few more symbolic sunflowers (optimistically hoping a few might survive this shady location). The opportunity to plant further up St George’s Hill is not available without break in and trespass (so we didn’t). Compared with 1649 the hill is now a gated community of luxurious homes. So we finished our journey at the nearby Silvermere golf and leisure complex, and told the barman about his local history. With some satisfying curiosity, he took our sunflower seeds.