Long-term love of Gardens inspires support for next amazing space

Enjoying the development of Hamilton Gardens over many years has led a local couple to make a significant donation towards its planned Medieval Garden (above).

Margo and David Connell, founding directors of successful local firm Connell Contractors, experienced the pre-Gardens site as youngsters and are amazed to see how it has grown in the decades since.

“We’re long-term residents of Hamilton,” says Margo, “and each generation of our family has got so much pleasure from the Gardens”.  

They reckon the Waikato is privileged to have the Hamilton Gardens visionary designer, Peter Sergel, realise his life’s work here.

“How lucky are we to have a man with such vision, we’re blessed to have the Gardens on our doorstep,” says Margo.

“I just love seeing people out enjoying themselves at the Gardens, there’s always lots of smiles. We go to concerts there during the Hamilton Arts Festival, it is great to have the best outdoor summer entertainment in such a lovely location.”

What’s their favourite garden?

“I love all the Gardens,” says Margo, "but if I had to name one thing I really adore, it’s the Alice and Mad Hatter sculpture.”

“I like the Katherine Mansfield Garden [pictured above],” says David, “it has almost a theme park atmosphere, and the concrete food looks good enough to eat, just look at those lamingtons”.

The couple often take their grandchildren to the Gardens, and the favourite thing they seek out is a “fairy door” in the Piazza, which is in fact a small utility hatch under a bench, a great example of children having their own imaginative perspective of this wonderland.

As teenagers in the 1970s Margo used to play netball in the courts at the top of the hill and David rode his Honda 100 around the “best motorcycle track around” down on the main flat.

The Hamilton Gardens site in 1966, soon after the opening of the Cobham Drive bridge on the left. The Gardens were then just the area in the top right, with netball courts to the immediate left of it, and the motorbike track where the rose gardens are now and the sand mine, later a rubbish dump, where the enclosed gardens are now.

“I remember the rubbish dump there, where we used to drop stuff out of our old landrover,” says David, “you could see the Gardens as a successful rehabilitation site”.

“Before the Gardens were there, we used to take our girlfriends up to the Sillary St Cemetery to terrify them, that’s how Hamilton romances started in those days,” says David, getting a raised eyebrow from Margo.

“When I look at the acknowledgement board, it’s neat to see the contributions made to the Gardens by those local families that have been here in Hamilton a long time,” says David.

“People who’ve built family businesses here, inter-generational enterprises that aren’t going to be sold off; by supporting the Gardens they’ve left a legacy here for the city and region.

“It’s a lesson to our grandchildren – it is important to give back. They can be proud that our family played a part in realising the Gardens’ amazing vision.”

Find out more and donate towards the completion of the new Medieval Garden at momentumwaikato.nz/hamiltongardens.