A COMMUNITY campaign to save the ‘secret gardens’ of Minehead, the abandoned town centre Clanville Gardens site, ended in disappointment on Wednesday (June 19).

Minehead Conservation Society was outbid in an auction of the one-acre gardens, which sold for nearly double their guide price.

The society believed the warm, south-facing, sheltered location of the Clanville site lent itself to becoming a sub-tropical, public, botanical garden.

Society chairman Sally Bainbridge said: “This would be an excellent tourist attraction and bring in additional visitors to the town.”

It had appealed for pledges of support from local people to enable it to bid in an auction run by Bristol-based Hollis Morgan on behalf of owners Somerset Council.

But with four to five other bidders, the society lost out as the gardens quickly sold for £58,000, against a guide price of £30,000.

Mrs Bainbridge said: “Sadly we did not have a chance as the gardens were sold.

“We do not know to whom or for what purpose.

“It will be interesting to see how much of the money Somerset Council has made will come back to benefit Minehead.”

Mrs Bainbridge said a botanical garden would have been a new, imaginative attraction for Minehead, but the society ‘do not have a philanthropist here to help us’.

She said: “It is such a lost opportunity. We can only hope that whomever has bought it is not intending to try and build on the land and destroy this valuable piece of Minehead’s historic past.

“That would be a tragedy.”

Mrs Bainbridge said the society’s appeal had brought forward some welcome additional pledges and it had been liaising with the Somerset Gardens Trust conservation and education charity, which believed Clanville was of historical interest and needed to be saved if possible.

The gardens once formed part of the Victorian Clanville Grange estate, and at one time was used as a horticultural nursery providing the town’s Blenheim Gardens with plants.

They were abandoned in the 1950s, but were maintained for several years by volunteers who recognised their historic importance.

Hollis Morgan said there could be scope for development, subject to planning permission.