At HMP Bedford, the enclosed town centre site offered an essentially sterile outdoor environment. Other than the small grassed area in the main exercise yard, the most impressive plant was the old wisteria shrub on the front of the Administration block. The effect of this sterility was to reduce the landscape predominantly to the shades of concrete grey and brick red of the buildings’ materials.

During October 2006, Philip Roderick, Director of The Quiet Garden Trust, attended a Business in the Community event at HMP Bedford. He spoke to the Governor and Jill Lewis, then Head of Offender Management, about his work with the Quiet Garden Movement. When he visited again in February 2007, they looked at the area in front of the hospital wing and discussed ways of improving the environment for the patients there.

The prison’s Healthcare Centre houses up to twelve mentally and / or physically unwell men. There was a small, enclosed exercise yard which had been neglected since its construction. It had a concrete slab floor, high wire walls, broken seating and two raised concrete beds.

The chance to develop this area as a quiet garden was too good to miss. Its success would contribute to prisoners’ well-being and could help reduce the number of prisoners needing to be covered by the ACCT (self harm support) process.  Having received some funding from the prison, they were fortunate to receive advice and support from a local garden centre’s main garden designer.

The Healthcare Centre patients and orderlies maintain this transformed space during their exercise periods ensuring that the garden is kept clean and attractive. This has had a positive effect on their overall well-being. The numbers on constant watch have been reduced because they have been able to use the new seating in this attractive space and have consequently become less isolated and more socialised.