Friend's Magazine Autumn Winter 2017 | Page 6

The Forgotten Garden Adventure Golf Words: The Alnwick Garden T he Duchess of Northumberland officially launched our new Forgotten Garden Adventure Golf course, which features animatronic creatures and a walk-through hornets’ nest. The Forgotten Garden is inspired by nature and include toadstools, a sleeping giant, a huge worm and a large broken flower pot. It also has a variety of sound effects. Our course has 13 holes and offers a challenging but fun experience for young and old alike. It opened in June but was officially launched on 2nd August by the Duchess with youngsters Page 6 from our Forget-Me-Not project, which delivers fun activities for children with additional needs. As a stamp of approval, our course has also recently won a prestigious Golden Trowel Award for its design. The Duchess said: “I think the course is great and an example of how it is possible to combine something that is tasteful and fits in with The Alnwick Garden. It brings another attraction to the area and anything extra that we can do for Alnwick has got to be good. I was involved in the design and the plan is to have the course open throughout the year and use it for events such as Hallowe’en and over the winter period.” The Forgotten Garden Adventure Golf is located next to the existing Gift Shop and close to the Stuart Halbert Elderberries Room. The course has been created by using onsite materials including natural rocks, old stone and wood, and is built around existing trees. One of the young people from the Forget-Me-Not project to try out the course was Amy Davison. The 15-year-old from Guidepost said: “I think it is a really good course and it is challenging in parts. I think it will really feed children’s imaginations.”