Jane Baker 1947-2025
It is with great sadness that we report the death of Jane Baker, a wonderful friend and supporter of the National Garden Scheme as a member of the East Sussex volunteer team and as a garden owner who raised and donated prodigious sums.
It was after a long and successful career teaching physics at Brighton Girls School, that Jane joined the National Garden Scheme’s East Sussex team as an Assistant County Organiser, a position she held for 14 years. Her meticulous support for her garden owners was reminiscent of how she had looked after her pupils – and in both cases she achieved impressive results. The funds raised by the gardens she looked after played a significant part in East Sussex’s increasing contribution to the National Garden Scheme’s overall garden income and donations.
For her pupils, a good number achieved places at Cambridge and Oxford Universities assisted by her teaching and in many of their alumna recollections Mrs Jane Baker was fondly remembered as ‘the favourite teacher.’ One wrote, “My favourite teacher was Mrs Jane Baker… She was an excellent teacher and obtained just the right balance in the sixth form between having fun and explaining the tricky bits.”
Jane was a keen and knowledgeable gardener throughout her adult life and she and her husband Nick started opening the garden of their home, Pembury House in the village of Clayton in the South Downs National Park, in aid of the National Garden Scheme in 1992. Over more than 30 years they raised a remarkable £160,000, a total few gardens have ever achieved. With some three acres of mainly woodland garden, it was renowned for its late-winter showing of snowdrops and hellebores. Thanks to Jane’s combination of passionate commitment to the National Garden Scheme and her efficiency, during the often inhospitable weeks of February and March, she ensured her social medial activity, website and other publicity resulted in many hundreds of visitors.
George Plumptre, who was Chief Executive of the National Garden Scheme from 2010-2025, throughout Jane’s time as an Assistant County Organiser, remembers Jane as a good friend who often quite unexpectedly sent him little email messages of thanks and encouragement. He said, “The National Garden Scheme has been very fortunate to have a friend and supporter so devoted to and determined for our charity, always wanting to see it achieve the best possible results and to do everything she possibly could to help make this happen. She and Nick were married for 56 years and made a great partnership who ensured that visiting the garden at Pembury House was always a memorably special experience. I loved her sense of humour, for instance saying that sometimes she felt like her favourite snowdrop, Galanthus ‘Grumpy’.”
A Service of Thanksgiving for Jane’s life will be held at Pangdean Old Barn, nr Brighton, BN45 7FN on Monday 3rd November at 12.30pm.
