THE GREEN GATHERING GROVE

Putting love back into the land

As an award-winning event focused on climate and community resilience, taking care of Piercefield Park where we hold our festival is hugely important to everyone involved with The Green Gathering. 

We have planted a grove of native trees on our festival site to help regenerate the land and to provide sustenance for people and wildlife in years to come. Our Green Gathering Grove includes fruit and nut trees, trees that will be laden with blossom in the Spring, trees that provide shade and shelter, awesome trees. The Grove will enhance local biodiversity and provide a community space for celebration and ceremony.

The trees we plant may be small but future generations will be wowed by them, as we are each year by the wondrous Wise Old Oak, grown from a tiny acorn planted in Piercefield Park’s past. And all this has been made possible by generous and passionate Green Gatherers contributing to a crowdfund campaign we ran during covid lockdowns.

In February 2022 we planted an inner circle of small trees - holly, hazel, elder, apple, plum, guelder rose and dogwood. In December 2022 we added a middle ring of larger trees including hawthorn, field maple and alder, followed in the new year by what will become giants around the edge of our Grove – oak, chestnut, lime, Scots pine and other venerable species.

The Stone in the Grove

On a scorching day just before midsummer, we raised a standing stone in the middle of the Grove, to mark the festival’s tenth anniversary in Chepstow.  This beautiful hunk of granite is a memory stone; a huggable stone; a stone we can lean against when we remember friends who’ve died, when we grieve for lost biodiversity, ground ourselves, build connections and celebrate life with our community.

We opened Green Gathering 2022 with a ceremony at the stone, remembering Dave Weirdigan, Phil Tomkins, Sean Moran, Alex Pickles, Ian Barclay, Winston, Zulu, and Jonny Brush. Tears were shed, there was music and at least one proposal of marriage. In 2023 we scattered Nigel Sartin's ashes in the Grove.

Find out more about our beautiful standing stone in this news piece here