Midsummer garden party

On Saturday 22 June we had a notable day celebrating the 140th anniversary of the unification of our beautiful College gardens and the significant progress on our ‘Shaping Newnham’s Future’ Campaign.

This wonderful event gave us the opportunity to celebrate reaching £23.5m towards our fundraising target of £25m by 2026. Thank you to all those who have supported the College so far. The campaign continues and if you would like to give, please click here.

We had a wonderful day packed full of festivities and were joined by hundreds of alumnae, families, students, friends and staff. Highlights included trying hands-on workshops with basket weaving, creating pinch pots, planting seeds and mosaic-making proving very popular.

Basket weaving during an alumnae garden party

Our historical rooms tours were a real highlight of the day with over 100 people viewing the two historic room settings with interpretation by our three costumed guides.

There was an chance to enjoy live music from the Rose Quartet, to visiting the fascinating Newnham and Bletchley Park exhibition. We were blessed with beautiful weather.

600 visitors listened to a wide variety of informative talks from garden history to archaeologist Dorothy Garrod to AS Byatt and the importance of history.

Many visitors rode the brightly coloured swing boats giving a unique view of the College gardens. Jack Gelato ice cream was an indulgent delight along with afternoon tea in the marquee Croquet on the lawn and simply wandering the gardens.

Two students enjoy an ice cream in the Newnham College garden

Our special thanks go out to our historical room re-enactment staff, all the craftspeople who ran our workshops, the swing boat operators, ice cream scoopers, afternoon tea servers, our amazing speakers, the players of the Rose quartet, archive and Bletchley Park exhibition organisers, and most importantly our exemplary team of gardeners who all worked together to create a wonderful day to remember for all our visitors. Most of all we would like to thank all those who shared the day with us and made it so memorable.

Take a look back at our video roundup of what was a memorable day for all.

We have received lots of positive feedback from the day including:

I wanted to thank you and the team for an unforgettable afternoon on Newnham grounds. Everything was perfect and the whole set-up both outdoors and indoors has been impressive. I managed to meet up with my flatmates from 18 years ago and attending an event like this was very meaningful and brought back lots of memories.

Dr Fatima Wang (NC 2002)

a wonderfully well run and enjoyable garden party.

Jenifer Glynn (NC 1948), younger sister of Rosalind Franklin (NC 1938)

just to convey warm thanks and congratulations from my husband and myself on the splendid event, which we greatly enjoyed. College was looking superb….

Jan Marsh (NC 1961)

…may I pass on congratulations to the College team for a perfectly splendid afternoon on Saturday at the Garden Party… The gardens also looked spectacular and the Bletchley exhibition provided a stark reminder that we follow in the footsteps of some incredible Newnham women whose contributions were greatly under-appreciated at the time. It was a memorable afternoon, thank you.

Dr Belinda Clarke OBE (NC 1992)

…I did want to congratulate you ALL for giving us such a wonderful day last Saturday… You had all worked so hard with such meticulous attention to detail to ensure that the day would run smoothly – and it did! Even in spite your warning that the free Ice cream would run out, there seemed to be plenty available – AND I even got my favourite choice of the strawberry flavour! My guest, Penny, and I thoroughly enjoyed the whole day from start to finish: the College was looking as splendid as ever… We enjoyed Jenny Morton’s talk on the history and development of the College gardens which are the glory of the College, and the Step Back in Time tours in Old Hall, which certainly brought back memories of my time there! Penny and I also thoroughly enjoyed our basket weaving activity in the airy marquee with its view out over the gardens near Clough. I never really believed that I would actually come away with something I had made during the hour’s session which I could proudly show my husband and daughter back home! So Congratulations again all round: you gave us a wonderful time and a day which we won’t forget in a hurry!

Mrs Christina H Wilson (NC 1959)

Thank you so much for a lovely day and congratulations to all who were involved in organising it – a splendid occasion. Thank you too for the photos and video to add to the happy memories.

Rosemary Pestell (Evans) (NC 1965)

Thank you so much once again for having us at the lovely Garden Party. It was a great event, my son and I truly enjoyed it. Well done!

Serena Liuni (NC 2007)

Amazing day! I would do it all over again in a heartbeat, we met some inspiring people who had lots of stories to share, and reminiscing about their student days at Newnham