What do you do, when your loved one dies suddenly?

Where do you go?

In my case, I found great sanctuary in heritage sites and historic gardens.

 

In 2024 within the space of 6 months, my life changed. 

In August of 2024, my dad died unexpectedly. Just 5 months later, my boyfriend of seven years’ dad died, this time from terminal cancer.  

In the space of half a year, life had changed forever – had converged cleanly into two distinct realms: the before, and the after. I had not only lost two key people in my life, but had lost all sense of normalcy; my everyday life had changed considerably. In the wake of this loss, I found myself searching for some kind of ‘Sanctuary’; a  sense of quiet reprieve from the deep feeling of loss and uncertainty I was feeling.   

 Just one week on from my dad dying I was due to start my first ‘real’ job in the heritage sector, something I had worked hard for. The job was the last thing me and my dad had ever spoken about – how proud he was of me. I felt I had aged 20 years in a single week. I did not really take any time off, except to attend the funerals – I worried that it would make a bad impression. I know now from experience that taking time off in these circumstances is always acceptable – but as a young griever, I just didn’t know.  

When I look back to this time, it was difficult and frightening, traumatic and stressful. Trying to adjust to a new role and do a decent job whilst being executor of an estate at 23, and supporting my boyfriend and his family, was virtually impossible. 

Amidst all of this, I noticed that I was relying a lot on my love for history – something I was fortunate enough to have shared with my dad, and remained a constant in my life.  

Visiting heritage sites with my volunteer pass gave me and my family a crucial escape. Just one day after his bereavement, I took my boyfriend and his family to Wrest Park. It was that dead period between Christmas and New Year; everything was gilded in frost and I remember the long lake was frozen inches deep. We walked around all day, and left when site closed. By going there, we were able to be outdoors, outside of the house, be surrounded by the beauty of nature. Inside the properties at Wrest Park and Audley End, we learned about other families throughout history – a distraction, but also a reminder that they had come before us, had experienced loss like us, had survived it. Watching the seasons change was a reminder of the cyclical nature of the world around us; that seasons change, that life involves birth, growth, change and death. We got into a routine, of seeking out these calm Sanctuaries.  

 ~ The word Sanctuary comes from old French and Latin roots, meaning a holy place or shrine, protected by ecclesiastical immunity. By the use of such places as a safe haven, the term has, by extension, come to be used for any place of safety. When a loved one dies, your life changes, and you can easily felt lost at sea. When this happens, you need a place of safety – not to forget your grief necessarily, but to sit quietly with it. ~

For thousands of years, humans have made sense of grief in different ways, often conducting rituals and traditions which, through familiarity and repetition, can alleviate the pain of loss. I now work at Stonehenge, and am keenly aware that it is a place that people travelled very long distances to gather at, and celebrate or commemorate the dead. I often wonder if this speaks to that feeling of needing a place to associate with loss, to offer a sense of stability – the comfort that this place has existed long before you, and will do so long after you, a place separated from your ordinary life by a pilgrimage. Historic houses and gardens fit this brief too, often providing a peaceful and beautiful retreat for us to sit with our grief, uninterrupted by, and separate to the ongoing demands of ordinary life. 

Creating a Project

 

Upon considering these places to be ‘sanctuaries’ for grief, I realised I wanted to do my own project as a Young Producer. I spoke to our Young Producer manager, Chania, who was incredibly supportive and got the wheels moving by putting me in touch with the charity we partnered with, the site team at Wrest Park, a heritage professional who contextualised grief within heritage education, as well as arranging for me to visit a community gardening exhibition.

I knew I wanted to explore the wellbeing benefits of nature and heritage, and I wanted to work with bereaved young people. When you lose a parent before your peers, it can be exceptionally lonely. Your friends can’t relate to your loss, or even comprehend the scale of it. There isn’t usually anyone to go to who can understand, or offer support. I wanted a group of young people to be able to experience the site, and grow their very own ‘sanctuary’ garden at an English Heritage property.  

With help from Chania, I got into contact with a children’s charity based in Bedfordshire, called CHUMS. CHUMS provide mental health and wellbeing support to children, and had worked with a group of bereaved young people and their families. Leading seasonal workshops with this group as a bereavement practitioner was Art Psychotherapist Danny Kitchener.  

Wrest Park 

Wrest Park has a history of being a place for quiet reflection and healing and was in use as a hospital during the First World War. Soldiers convalesced there, partaking in games, activities and sports within the grounds so it seemed the perfect property for a project centred around wellbeing and Sanctuary. 

I was put in touch with Jonathan Andrews, site manager, and Andrew Luke, head gardener at Wrest Park. I asked whether our group could plant in the garden at Wrest Park – fully expecting a no. To my surprise, they said yes – and cleared a section of border near the admissions office. I applied for, and was granted £500 of funding from Kew Royal Botanic Garden’s ‘Grow Wild’ programme, which made the project possible and allowed me to purchase wildflowers for the garden, seeds for the children to take home, and sketchbooks for them to keep a record of their time on the project. 

With help from Polly Baddeley at CHUMS, the Wrest Park team, and Danny – I planned 4 sessions focusing on the theme of Sanctuary. I wanted this group of young people to be able to design and plant their own garden, and tell their own stories through it. In our planning sessions, we discussed how to explore sanctuary through several elements. Throughout the entirety of the project I was supported by Chania from the Shout Out Loud team. 

Sessions 1 & 2

• covered an introduction to the site, Wrest Park, and its history, as well as learning about wildflowers and storytelling.
• I shared the history of UK native wildflowers, encouraging the group to creatively come up with their own meanings, stories and fables relating to different plants.
• We created a collage of wildflowers, using our plant-meanings to lay out the flowers in a pattern to ‘tell our own story’, which also acted as a design for the memorial bed we wanted to create.

Planting the bed: with Andrew’s help, the children learnt how to plant. 

I noticed the children really immersing themselves in the storytelling activity; they were keen to learn all of the wildflower names; bladder campion, dark mullien, betany, honesty. Danny told them the story of how the ‘forget-me-not’ got its name, and they took inspiration from the fable, and the names, and conjured up their own stories for the plants. One parent told me the next week, that since this session her daughter had been writing stories all week. 

It was a really creative session, and once they had come up with these stories, we cut out the images of the flowers and created a collage to determine their placement within the garden, this allowed the group to feel that sense of ownership over the design.  

After lunch, we spent time with Andrew, the head gardener. He showed the children how to successfully plant a flower; how far apart to space them, how to free up the roots. At first some of the children were not keen to get their hands dirty, but before long everyone was getting involved. I found it really heart-warming just how focused and intent the group was throughout both activities but especially the planting.  

Session 3 

We heard all about Henry and Jemima, two previous owners of the house who had made many alterations to the gardens. When Jemima died, Henry commissioned a beautiful ‘Mourning Ring’ with a lock of hair displayed behind a window-cut diamond. Richard Luscombe, volunteer at both Wrest Park and CHUMS, spoke to the children about this history, and explored the history of mourning. There was an incredibly touching moment where Richard was kind enough to open up about his own loss of his daughter Becki who sadly died by suicide.  

Richard showed the group a mourning item of his own, a very small rubber duck that he carries with him in her memory. There was definitely a change in the group in this moment, and I am so grateful that Richard was open about his story because it gave the young people ‘permission’ to open up too. Several of the group started to tell Richard about how they themselves had items from their loved one; a bear made from a shirt, a memory box, photos. It was so incredibly moving and highlighted the fact that it is probably quite rare for a young griever to have this kind of cross-generational interaction focused on loss. It normalised grief, and removed that sense of taboo and silence we often feel. This then meant that when we moved into the object-making workshop, many of the group decided to make an object relating to their loved one. 

 

Session 4 

This was a very relaxed session 4 weeks on, where we revisited our garden and got to see how much the flowers had grown. Danny, our art psychotherapist, commented on how metaphorical this was, to be able to visually see the growth and blossoming of the garden, and the effect time had upon it – something that had taken place in all of us too, but is not always so visible. 

Danny brought in some pebbles from his local beach in Kent, and we all decorated these with a word or image, then left them in the garden. This was a really reflective and meditative session, and I noticed the parents in particular enjoying the quiet. I spoke to one mother, who expressed that it was just so nice to be sat in such a beautiful place in the garden, experiencing a sense of calm despite what was going on within her life. One child decorated their rock with a pride flag and left it within the garden, demonstrating how comfortable they felt to express themselves and to explore and celebrate their individuality. I saw several of the young people come out of their shell over the course of the project, their confidence blooming. They made friends, and their parents expressed how good it was to take part in a project focused around bereavement support – something they felt was lacking.  

The results of this project  

For me, this project has highlighted how greater access to these spaces is crucially important. For many, cost is a barrier to entry, and without my volunteer pass, myself and my family would have never had access to these sites – our grief ‘journey’ would have looked much different. This raises questions about what offers there are for bereaved families, and whether this is something heritage organisations should consider exploring considering the benefit heritage and nature spaces can offer – for instance a short-term discounted (or free) ‘Sanctuary’ pass for those in that situation. It also highlights just how powerful and transformative it can be for young people to have ownership over a project, and the ability to co-create and participate in the decision making.  

I learned from Danny how important it is to be flexible, relaxed and reflective when planning sessions involving young people. Sometimes the best approach is to let them take the lead. The ‘Creating Sanctuary’ project was very much a group effort between myself and all of the people mentioned in this post, so a big thank you should go to them. It was a lovely thing to be part of, and I am grateful to Chania and the Shout Out Loud programme for facilitating it.  

Thanks to Shout Out Loud, Kew Royal Botanic Garden’s ‘Grow Wild’, CHUMS, and Wrest Park