The Powell-Cotton Trust in Birchington is launching new weekly cooking workshops aimed at optimising every corner of the abundant Quex House & Gardens and bringing fresh skills to its Sunshine Project members and volunteers.
Over the past two years, the Trust’s Sunshine Project has harnessed the therapeutic power of nature and gardening to offer new experiences and opportunities to people with learning disabilities, mental health issues or are socially isolated.
The Trust is able to continue its work through the Sunshine Project into early 2026 thanks to an Association of Independent Museums ‘Connected Communities’ grant funded by UK Government via Arts Council England.
The Quex Garden welcomes individuals and community groups to volunteer and work alongside the Trust’s gardeners to keep the gardens running. Volunteers take on everyday practical tasks, such as woodland clearance, garden furniture up-cycling and painting, as well as joining workshops and events, including pottery sessions, yoga classes and seasonal crafts.
The gardens provide hands-on learning experiences for people with disabilities, sensory impairments, or autism spectrum disorders, as well as outdoor activities tailored to individual sensory and mobility needs, non-verbal individuals and those with cognitive limitations, such as stroke and brain surgery survivors.
The Trust welcomes residential homes and community care centres, a modern slavery refuge house, SEND schools and colleges, SENSE participants with support workers and individuals who may have lost a partner, are new to the area, or are looking for ways to give back to the community.
The new cooking workshops will be led by Kent chef Annie Mitchell, alongside the Trust’s new Community Engagement Gardener, Rosie Carr, to be enjoyed by all of the groups and volunteers who take part in the Sunshine Project.
Each week, participants will learn about cooking, creating recipes, preparing ingredients and making beautiful dishes, all using produce grown in Quex Gardens. Plentiful supplies of courgettes, nigella, tomatoes, Greek beans, borlotti beans, green beans, pumpkins and squashes will be harvested by volunteers who will then make the meals which will be enjoyed by everyone at the end of the workshop.
The restored Victorian Glasshouses which run along a stretch of the Walled Gardens will allow the team to grow produce under glass, so aubergines and tomatillos (for green salsa) will be used right into the winter. Everyone will learn about cleaning and storing fruit and vegetables for winter too, including onions, potatoes, apples, pears, figs, grapes, chard, kale, carrots and ‘yin yang’ kidney beans.
To accompany all the food, volunteers will take to the smoothie bike, using their own pedal power to spark a food processor into life to make all sorts of fruit smoothies and vegetable purees.
To cap this off, the Trust’s new pizza oven and Garden Kitchen will be in action, as plums are roasted, figs baked and Szechuan peppers sizzled to perfection. Also in October, visiting artist, ceramicist Julia Lancaster will be leading workshops to create tiles inspired by the trees in Quex Gardens.
The Trust is striving to make the gardens as sustainable as possible. The kitchen’s new pizza oven is made entirely from reclaimed bricks; the cucumber pit is now fitted with a solar powered water pump; and historic water tanks all around the walled garden ensure that water is harvested and used wherever possible, particularly vital as Thanet is a designated drought area.
The veranda to the front of the Winter Garden has also been completely landscaped to create an accessible shared community space using reclaimed Victorian tiles.
Wellbeing Taster Days
Visitors will be able to get a close look at all the work at two Wellbeing Taster Days on Friday 26 September and Friday 24 October. These special days will offer a refreshing mix of activities designed to nurture both body and mind.
Visitors will be able to take part in gentle yoga on the lawn, a seasonal sensory garden tour, creative crafts and African drumming. Everything is scheduled to give plenty of time for a stroll around the Powell-Cotton Museum, a tour of Quex House and a wander through the gardens. All sessions are included as part of the Museum admission ticket. Full details at https://powell-cottonmuseum.org/event/wellbeing-taster-days
Set within ten acres of Quex Gardens, within the wider Quex Park, the Powell-Cotton Museum presents natural history collections in historic dioramas, world material culture objects from Africa and Asia, as well as local archaeology from the Thanet coastline.
Visitors can explore the Museum’s gardens, its Victorian Kitchen Garden and woodland walk, as well as the neighbouring 19th century Quex House. For more information and to book tickets please visit www.powell-cottonmuseum.org
Opening hours: 11am-4pm on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and bank holidays until Friday 31st October 2025, then from February half-term 2026.
Tickets: Adult: £5; Concession: £4.50; Child (4-16 yrs): £4.00, Infant (0-3 yrs): Free; Powell-Cotton Museum Members: Free. For more information and to book tickets visit powell-cottonmuseum.org
