Martineau Gardens: Edgbaston's community garden keeps growing something good

Two miles from Birmingham city centre, behind a gate on Priory Road, lies one of the city's best kept secrets. Martineau Gardens is a community garden and registered charity with two and a half acres of organically managed landscape, and entry is free.

The site has a long story. According to the charity, its roots go back to the 1950s, when it was part of the Martineau Teachers' Centre, created to support and retain teachers in post-war Birmingham. By the 1960s it had become an environmental studies centre where schoolchildren learned about its rich mix of habitats. When council funding ended in 1997, volunteers, former staff and supporters rallied to save it, turning it into one of Birmingham's longest running community gardens. In 2022 the charity celebrated 25 years of bringing people, plants and wildlife together.

Today its heart is therapeutic horticulture. Volunteers, many living with mental health issues or learning difficulties, help to manage the woodland, demonstration vegetable beds, orchard, herb beds and bee hives. The gardens are a designated Site of Local Importance for Nature Conservation, won Green Flag Awards in 2010, 2011 and 2012, and run education sessions on science and nature for local schools. Organic plants and produce are on sale too.

There is plenty of fresh growth. In 2026 the charity received a grant from the Community Matters Fund (Green Spaces), run by National Grid and Localgiving, to build raised beds so that volunteers of all abilities can garden side by side. Speaking to Localgiving, Environmental Education Lead Juliette Green said small charities like Martineau Gardens "quietly fill that gap, offering places of welcome, reducing loneliness and helping people reconnect with their community."

A bigger dream is taking shape as well. The old Mollie Martineau Building was demolished in 2023, and the charity has worked with APEC Architects and its community to design a new wooden eco building with solar panels and rainwater harvesting, aiming to be as close to carbon zero as possible. Planning permission has been granted. The Small Seeds, Big Dreams appeal launched in June 2025 by handing out 10,000 packets of wildflower seeds, a million seeds in all, towards a project costing around £1 million.

The gardens are open Monday to Saturday from 10am to 4pm, with donations welcomed. Details of volunteering, events and the building appeal are on the Martineau Gardens website.