Hundreds of keen gardeners and visitors were welcomed to Stoke Poges Memorial Gardens for its first Chelsea Fringe Festival last weekend.

Coinciding with the Chelsea Flower Show, 14 garden installations were created as part of the festival by local schools, residents, community groups and Friends of the Gardens to celebrate the lives of some of the more well-known people interred at the gardens.

A number of famous and influential former Bucks residents are interred there and visitors were given guided tours and told stories behind the beautiful plots including the Gurkha garden and the Judy Garland garden.

Exhibits for the event, which are still dotted round the gardens, include a Wizard of Oz garden in memory of Judy Garland created by pupils at St Mary’s Farnham Common School, the ladybird garden for the Pasold family, founders of Ladybird clothes created by Farnham Common Craft & Chatter with the Farnham Common Rainbows, and a model of a Shorts No 2 bi-plane to remember Lord Brabazon of Tara, the first man in Britain to fly 500 yards built by the Stoke Poges Air Scouts.

The Stoke Poges Society members were on hand to tell visitors about the history of the beautiful Grade I-listed gardens and the founder, Sir Noel Mobbs, while the Stoke Poges, Wexham and Fulmer Horticultural Society provided information about the people who built the gardens.

The event was free with donations on the day going towards upkeep of the site.

The Chelsea Fringe is an alternative garden festival, which runs alongside the famous Chelsea Flower Show, started in London by garden writer and journalist Tim Richardson.