Whinhill Primary School
Whinhill School lies just below the Greenock Cut. The Cut was part of a water engineering project by Robert Thom, which delivered water from 7 reservoirs to the town of Greenock. Not only did the townsfolk benefit, but many industries were able to use water for power.
Our garden celebrates the Greenock Cut and we have tried to give some idea of the Cut itself and the beautiful natural surroundings that make it a favourite walk nowadays. We have also included little hints of the industries that were supplied with water:
The ropeworks
The potteries
The woollen mills
And sugar refining – our pottery bowl is full of sugar water for the bees
All the plants came from a local garden and from our school’s own wild grounds.
Tap water
Bridge
Sign at waterman's
Our bowl of blue flowers at the top represents a reservoir, the white flowers cascading down are a waterfall , our recycled cartons are the Cut and the tap and basin at the end re[resent the water supply.
We’ve included one of the many little bridges that cross the Cut as they are so iconic to this special place.
We’ve used 2 old pallets, the base lined with old compost bags and we used turf that had been lifted when our new Trim-trail was built.
Our containers are also all repurposed.
The osprey painting done by our of our young designers is representative of the amazing nature to be found round our reservoirs. 2 or 3 ospreys have been coming for the past summers to nest here.
Our sign is a copy of the one at the start of The Cut near the waterman’s cottage and just up the hill from here.
Preparing the pallets
Planting
Building a bridge
In this short video clip, pupils walk us through the story of their garden.
