Another successful Millennium Green Fête held on Saturday, 13th June 2026

Despite the extreme weather of the Climate Crisis, our Desborough Millennium Green has survived well in 2026, even flourished, while putting on some excessive greenery in trees & hedges as has been happening throughout the southern half of Britain. It is now long since we cleared the Green's area of docks & nettles in 2000 and, with a design from public consultation, we planted what were then little more than whips which are now beautiful trees on the grassland and, around them, flowering hedges providing wildlife corridors. Thanks to the Jessie Cleaver Fund our original ten benches have been remade and a new cleared area supports young fruit trees — apple, pear & plum for the future.

Our Desborough Millennium Green Trustees wish to thank the many people of Desborough on whom we depend for the maintenance of the Green. These include the weekly work of the St Giles Church Gardening Group who maintain the large raised flower bed and much more. We appreciate too the work of Stephen Chester and his Spendlove Contracting team whom we need to employ in basic mowing, path clearance, & tree & hedge trimming, in all of which they care about wildlife. While the Green is always there to provide "a green thought in a green shade" for solitaries or small groups of friends or families, we are glad of our quite large community events. This year, but not for the first time, we thank John & Shelagh Hodder, leading other committee of the Desborough Community Development Trust, for providing an Easter Egg Hunt. More than seventy children throughout some hours were to be seen searching our greenery, pen & paper in hand, to find decorated paper eggs towards their claims of chocolate ones to take home. At other times, organised groups enjoy the Green for an hour or two, such as Scouts for water sledging.

Our big annual event, the mid-summer Music & Fun Day, was also happy in good weather. Here our Trustees & Friends were helped this year by some Young Leaders in the quite heavy preparatory work of gathering & bringing in and setting up dozens of chairs, tables and gazebos — the latter including the large ones to accommodate a 28 person brass band and the essential Revive Tea Tent. And at the end of the day, bless them, they had to take them down and return them to their owners.

It was good to see so many small groups running stalls and games around the Green, publicising their activities, together with old faithfuls, the larger & best -known charities of Desborough, including Marlow House, DCDT, the WI, The Civic Society/Heritage Centre and others. It was a fun day for all ages, with excellent recognisable music from Geoff Risely's 60s Band, the dance & music from the Braybrooke Morris Dancers, and the Magic & Puppetry from the Great Adamos. We are grateful to all who came to enjoy the day.

And now comes the request. The DMGT would welcome more help: with work on the actual Green if that suits you; with ideas for entertainment — and even publicity or fund-raising, if that is your skill. There might be some willing to be active on our wonderful committee at its infrequent meetings throughout the year. As said so often, the Desborough Millennium Green is there in perpetuity for the people of Desborough. It is a small but very green and quiet place which cannot be built on.

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