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Social and Therapeutic Horticulture Symposium – Beyond the Services Monday 30th June
Our MCs for the day will be:
Annie Guilfoyle
Annie’s design work has featured on several televisions programmes, such as BBC Small Town Gardens. For 18 years Annie was the director of Garden Design at KLC School of Design at Hampton Court Palace, Surrey, where she was instrumental in establishing the highly acclaimed garden design courses. Many of Annie’s students have gone onto to become successful, award-winning designers.
As Garden Course Consultant at West Dean College near Chichester, West Sussex, Annie is responsible for the development of the educational programme and has developed an educational allotment where students can learn about growing food. Annie teaches a monthly course called The Art and Craft of Garden Design at Great Dixter House & Gardens in Northiam, Rye, East Sussex.
Annie lectures internationally and each summer runs a garden design course at Chanticleer Garden in Pennsylvania, every autumn she teams up with Viviao Valfredda in Northern Italy to run design workshops and courses in Italian. Her international lecturing work includes Pacific Northwest, Kiev, Copenhagen and Milan. She is a regular judge for The Society of Garden Designers annual awards, RHS Chelsea Flower Show, Copenhagen Garden Show and Orticolario on Lake Como, Italy.
Together with Noel Kingsbury, Annie has established Garden Masterclass, this is a programme of learning days and events in association with Gardens Illustrated. The aim is to bring together gardeners and designers with the very best and most innovative people in the gardening world through one-day workshops all over the United Kingdom. Each workshop is organised around a specific topic, and designed to help participants learn, create and apply new knowledge and skills.
Richard Claxton
Richard Claxton has been a GP in Tonbridge for the past 21 years. He is convinced that the health of both individuals and society as a whole is enhanced by connectivity with the natural world. He campaigns for the provision of Nature-based Therapies in healthcare settings.
Richard created the web-based directory of Therapy Gardens: www.gardening4health.co.uk which is now an accredited charity. He is also a Garden Designer specialising in gardens for healthcare settings, a volunteer guide for the Delos Garden at Sissinghurst, and a Trustee of Greenfingers Charity, which funds and builds gardens for Children’s Hospices.
His connection with Tuppenny Barn began in 2023, and grew rapidly as he co-organised the 2023 Propagating Green Therapies conference in October which culminated in him becoming a Trustee in 2024.
Our Speakers
Maggie Haynes
After serving in the Intelligence Corps for 21 years, followed by 5 years security consultancy Maggie decided that she wanted to pursue a project that had sustainability at its heart. With 2 young children she felt that she wanted to be able to make a difference in some way that might help towards climate change and become a small beacon of sustainability within the local area. With an aim to teach children about the environment and grow food for the local community organically, in 2005 she set out converting a green pasture field in Southbourne into an organic smallholding. This was without any knowledge of how to grow fruit and vegetables but with bags of motivation. Today Tuppenny Barn is now an accredited charity and runs six green therapy projects for young people and adults alongside its education programmes. Maggie is also a Trustee for Gardening4health.
Ben Thomas
Thrive is dedicated to improving the lives of people with ill health and disabilities by harnessing the power of Social and Therapeutic Horticulture (STH). Thrive does this across a wide range of care settings. Ben has served as CEO of Thrive since April 2024, following his tenure as Head of Operations since 2021. An advocate for the use of STH, Ben is committed to expanding Thrive’s impact by training more STH practitioners and developing innovative services. He also convenes the Therapeutic Horticulture Stakeholder Group, which works to identify and address barriers to commissioning STH in the UK. Ben wants to see many more people befitting from STH and demonstrate how STH can improve care and quality of life for those with long term health conditions and disabilities.
Lucy Thorpe
Lucy has been working in land based further education and social and therapeutic horticulture for 17 years following a career change from a Chartered Surveyor.
Following completion of an RHS Level 3 Advanced Certificate in Horticulture and a Professional Diploma in Social and Therapeutic Horticulture Lucy began work for Help for Heroes in their Wiltshire Recovery centre. Here she established a thriving fruit and vegetable garden around which she developed and ran a programme of nature-based activities. These were delivered for both educational and therapeutic benefits to military serving personnel, veterans and their families. The programme included an 8-week Gardening Course, a City and Guilds Level 2 Certificate in Practical Horticulture and seasonal workshops. During this time she collaborated with Sparsholt College and veterans to create a Chelsea Flower Show garden winning a Gold medal and Best in Discovery Exhibits award. She also supported the development of a garden for serving military personnel within an NHS secure mental health facility.
Sarah Wilson
Sarah Wilson is the Chief Executive Officer of Veterans’ Growth, a charity dedicated to supporting military veterans through horticultural therapy. Under her leadership, the charity offers therapeutic gardening programs aimed at alleviating conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder, providing veterans with new skills and fostering long-term social connections. Beyond her role at Veterans’ Growth, Sarah is known for hosting the “Roots and All” podcast, where she shares insights on wildlife gardening and sustainable practices.
Anna Baker-Cresswell
Anna has worked in the military charity sector since 2006 when she started a charity in memory of her Mother.
The charity’s premise was Horticultural Therapy for veterans, in walled gardens.
Now,12 years after starting another charity to test Horticultural Therapy as a rehab intervention for injured serving personnel at the Defence Medical Rehabilitation Centre Headley Court and then DMRC Stanford Hall, she is leaving HighGround.
Anna has joined forces with Cath Manuel, a Horticultural Therapist based in Queensland Australia to start https://www.therapeuticgardentours.com/ with the first Tour starting in London.
Before then, Anna is heading to Australia to speak at a veterans’ seminar, and then on to Hobart Botanic Garden in Tasmania to talk to Horticultural Therapists.
Robin Simpson
Brigadier (retd) Robin Simpson graduated MB ChB from the University of Aberdeen in 1983. On joining the Army, he undertook Parachute training and then deployed to Northern Ireland before Officer training at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. He then was posted to Germany for his GP training which was completed in 1989 in BMH Hong Kong. Further postings took him to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Dortmund, Sennelager, Cyprus and Northern Afghanistan. In 2011 he deployed as the Senior Medical Officer Camp Bastion with specific responsibilities for the medical care of Captured Personnel.
In 1995 he became the Defence Professor of General Practice at the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine. His research interest focusses on care of patients on the battlefield on which he has published extensively. In 2012 he was appointed the GP Dean and then in March 2015 the Postgraduate Dean of the Defence Medical Services. He is a MRCGP Examiner (since 1995) and was responsible for adding the care of Veterans to the RCGP Curriculum, so this is now taught to all GPs in training
Brigadier Simpson is particularly interested in making GPs more aware of veteran’s health issues and co – authored the RCGP document entitled “Meeting the Healthcare Needs of Veterans.” He is now the RCGP Veterans Champion responsible for the Veterans Friendly GP Programme with 4300 accredited GP Practices in England (69% of all Practices). He is the Professor of Military Primary Healthcare and Veterans Health University of Chester.
In January 2018 he was appointed Queens Honorary Surgeon.
He left the Army in Jan 2020 after 35 years’ service and has been working as a GP in Hampton in Arden.
Tuppenny Barn are proud to be Soil Association Organic
members campaigning for healthy, humane and sustainable
food, farming and land use.
Tuppenny Barn is a member of the Organic Growers Alliance which is a network of growers, farmers and horticulturalists. The OGA is a peer-to-peer support network run by growers for growers. As well, the OGA is a place to exchange information and learn and it represents its members.
