Eastbourne &
The Queen's
Green Canopy

Plant A Tree For
The Jubilee

Find out more

On 19th November at 10am we will be planting 70 trees and as many accompanying shrubs alongside the path that rises up Paradise Down from the junction of Paradise Drive and Link Road. We aim to make this a beautiful start to a well-used way up the hill, and a lasting tribute to our late Queen. View the planting plan here external link.

Come and join us for the ceremony, and the planting, and please consider sponsoring one of the trees (select sapling) or shrubs (select whip) on this website. We would also like to see a stone waymarker at the start of the path, the gates of paradise – please email us if you would like to help sponsor that.

Eastbourne Jubilee Green Canopy

The Queen's Green Canopy is her chosen way for us to leave a legacy of her Platinum Jubilee - to plant trees and shrubs to celebrate her reign.

Anyone can take part, plant any kind of tree anywhere, and record the planting at queensgreencanopy.org.

In Eastbourne, we have decided to do something rather special.

The King And Queen leave St Mary's Church with their daughters on Sunday 8th March 1936

The Queen spent holidays in Eastbourne as a young girl, and her father formally opened the town's downlands when Eastbourne council bought them in 1929. To leave a lasting legacy of her Jubilee, we are setting out on a 10-year project to regenerate the slopes of the South Downs above Eastbourne, transforming a wilderness of bramble and dead ash into a rich haven for wildlife and a beautiful and engaging experience for us all.

We have designed an avenue of ecologies stretching from Butts Brow at the northern edge of the town to Black Robin Farm near Beachy Head.

We will be raising money to fund the project through sponsorship of trees, benches and waymarkers.

If you would like to donate a tree please click on the Donate button at the top of the page.

If you would like to donate a waymarker or a bench please email trees@EastbourneJGC.org to discuss design and location.

We have commissioned Walter Bailey, a local artist with a national reputation, to create at least one bench for us, and local stonemason Will Spankie to design waymarkers to be placed to mark the track of the avenue.

We anticipate installing a range of benches, from simple and robust to works of art. We would like to discuss the what and where and how much with you, and create a bespoke solution that suits you.

For more details of our ideas please see EJGC Waymarkers and Benches .


About Us

The Eastbourne Jubilee Green Canopy project is a collaborative venture between:

  • Eastbourne Jubilee Green Canopy, a (once registration is complete) Charitable Incorporated Organisation set up specifically to oversee the venture.
  • 3VA, a long-established Eastbourne-based voluntary action charity, who will hold the funds, perform all the administrative work, maintain the relationships with other Eastbourne organisations involved in the venture, and work with them to raise additional funds for their specific projects.
  • Eastbourne Borough Council, who own the land through which the Avenue runs (having acquired it through an act of parliament in 1929 to protect it for the benefit of the town). EBC will own anything planted or placed on their land – please note that your sponsorship does not give you any rights of ownership.
  • Treebourne, Eastbourne’s extraordinarily successful tree-planting charity.
  • Eastbourne’s schools, many of whom are keen to have spaces on the escarpment where their pupils can learn to understand and appreciate nature.
  • Other local Eastbourne groups with an interest in particular sections of the Avenue. These include the Babylon Woods group, Old Town Library, the Royal Eastbourne Golf Club and Meads Community Association.
  • The Towner, who are helping with the design of benches, waymarkers etc, and whose development at Black Robin Farm lies on the track of the Avenue.
  • Sussex Wildlife Trust, who are advising on local ecologies.

And, we hope, The Eden Project as their Eastbourne feasibility study progresses.

The people directly involved in running the EJGC are:

Ralph Lucas: Chair
Following 15 years in the City as an accountant and then a merchant banker, Ralph Lucas has for the last 30 years combined The Good Schools Guide with an active role in the House of Lords.
Annalisa Bicknell: Business development
After a global career in International Finance, Annalisa established a property development business. Her expertise lies in team building and creating sustainable long term growth businesses. She has been an active contributor and board member of several voluntary groups and charities in the UK, Belgium, USA and Nigeria.
Brian Murphy: Finance
Brian brings experience from a career of over 30 years in senior Finance roles in Gillette and JTI in geographies as diverse as Latin America, Italy, Iran and Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as the UK. Apart from serving as FD for the Eastbourne Jubilee Green Canopy, Brian is also Treasurer of the Eastbourne Society.
Henry Branson: IT
Henry has lived in the Eastbourne area for 25 years and been a member of the RSPB since he was five years old. Having worked previously for Eastbourne Borough Council he is very familiar with the Downland Estate and the environmental challenges it faces.
Mia Thomson: Operations
Mia has over 20 years experience working in the Arts. Representing new and established talent in Film, TV, and Theatre. She set up Mia Thomson Associates (soon to be Mia Thomson Talent Management) in London over 14 years ago.
Antonia Lucas: Promotions
Created and ran the national prisons charity SafeGround, specialising in improving prisoner’s family relationships as a foundation for going straight on release.

All of us live in or near Eastbourne.

For information on what's happening across East Sussex for the Queen's Green Canopy and guidance on tree planting for the Jubilee visit: Queen's Green Canopy | Action in rural Sussex

Map

Our tribute to The Queen will be planted over the next 10 years, as the programme of felling the ash allows. In 2022 we expect to plant trees mostly behind the northern section of the Royal Eastbourne Golf Club, above Priory Heights and above Moira House

Get Involved

Fundraising for Eastbourne Jubilee Green Canopy started formally on 24th May 2022.

If you would like to help us with fundraising, or in any other way, or to share your views on what we should be planning, or to sponsor a tree or waymarker, please email us at trees@eastbournjgc.org.

To sponsor a tree, please click on Donate in the top menu.