Some TLC for St. Winifred

When St. Winifred has first installed on Promenade Hill in 1896, she was surrounded by a pool of water that flowed out of the statue's base. The pool was stocked with goldfish. The appropriateness of water at the feet of St. Winifred comes from the account of her own life. When she rebuffed the advances of a suitor named Caradog, he decapitated her, and from the spot where her head fell to the ground, a healing spring appeared. (As the story goes, Winifred's brother Beuno, also destined to become a saint, reattached his sister's head and restored her to life.)

In February 2012, Gossips published an article that appeared in the Hudson Evening Register in 1898--two years after the statue was installed on Promenade Hill--reporting that a police officer had been assigned "to keep order" on Promenade Hill:

The duty he has to to perform there is arduous, and is much augmented by the carelessness of parents who allow their children to trample down the grass and to throw gravel at the gold fish, in the pool about St. Winifred, unrebuked. People also go there with their dogs and allow them to run loose to damage flowers and dig up the beds.

It is not known when the City gave up on the goldfish pool around the base of St. Winifred. For as long as most people can remember it's been filled with earth and wild growing things.

In 2008, a group of volunteers led by Ellen Thurston and financed with $500 contribution for plants from Fred Martin, who owned the Half Moon Saloon, cleaned out the bed around St. Winifred and replanted it. David Dew Bruner created the planting plan, designed to resemble a Victorian carpet garden, with plants like blue rug juniper, blue oat grass, and nepeta, to evoke the color of water. This is how it looked when we were done.

Alas, woodchucks, difficulty getting water to the site (no one knows what happened with the water that once flowed from St. Winifred's base), and waning enthusiasm for weeding took their toll on the carpet garden, and over the years it returned its untended state. 

This summer, things are looking up for St. Winifred. Perfect Ten has taken over the care and keeping of St. Winifred's bed, and yesterday they were at work installing new plants donated by Michael Conti from his company, Grace.

Go up to Promenade Hill and admire the product of their hard work. Although there were adults on hand for the planting, the ongoing maintenance of the bed--watering and weeding--will be carried out by the girls of Perfect Ten.

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