Sandy Moser and David Culp live on opposite sides of Downingtown’s Bondsville Mill Park. Bookends, if you will—and consequential ones, at that. Over the past six years, they’ve been at the center of efforts to bring a once-dead 47-acre industrial canvas back to life, transforming the landscape surrounding factory ruins and the site of an 18th-century grist mill once powered by Beaver Creek.
“I’ve always had this notion that, wherever you live, you have to make a difference,” says Culp.
A renowned gardener, author, lecturer and designer, Culp is the man behind the otherworldly oasis at Brandywine Cottage, also in Downingtown. Moser is a fabulous gardener in her own right. A 40-year fixture on East Brandywine Township boards, she’s been the primary sparkplug in the Bonds Mill project.
In the early 1800s, Abraham Bond established Bondsville as a factory village. During the Civil War, the mill produced uniforms for Union soldiers. By 1927, the Collins & Aikman Corporation purchased the property and produced automobile upholstery cloth. During its heyday around World War II, the mill employed three shifts, largely producing canvas military ware for stretchers, tank and jeep covers, tents, haversacks, and water-pail buckets.
The township acquired the mill in 2005 using its own open-space funds and began cleaning up the property and securing collapsed buildings. While the park opened to the public in 2015, work to expand the trails network, tend the gardens and continue stabilizing the structures is ongoing. There are dozens of community partners. On workdays, it’s not uncommon to see 20 volunteers. “I watched for a few years to see if this was a flash in the pan,” Culp says. “Now the Keebler elves show up.”
As a neighbor, Culp frequently walked the park’s trails. His involvement began when he enquired about plans to remediate a one-acre cement pad in front of the ruins. It’s now a two-acre meadow he designed. The excavated concrete was used as material for the permeable base of a new 40-car parking lot. Culp Clearing is a joint funding partnership between the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Chester County and East Brandywine Township. Designed by Culp, it should be open this fall as a sustainable meadow filled with deep-rooted grasses and 1,100 orange butterfly plants. “It’s all about education,” Moser says. “We want to bring people in to see that this is what you can do in your own backyard.”
So far, this is the first garden Culp has given his name to. He calls it “the people’s garden.” “How could I say no to putting a garden in front of these buildings?” he poses.
As a neighbor, Culp frequently walked the park’s trails. His involvement began when he enquired about plans to remediate a one-acre cement pad in front of the ruins. It’s now meadow he designed.
In the meadow, two former restroom facilities will be seating areas. The garden is designed for hosting art shows, plant sales and other events. “We want to have people in it,” Culp says. “It’s about usage.”
Culp’s plans at Bondsville also call for a mill-race rain garden. For all of it, he’s relied on European templates that focus on reutilizing industrial spaces, making them functional for communities. “We’re showcasing what you can do with a brownfield,” says Moser, who oversees a weekly Bondsville Mill blog that reaches over 900 subscribers.
Moser kicked things off with her butterfly garden along the roadside. “Once that went in and we were rid of the overgrowth, you could see the buildings,” she says.
Other plans include the conversion of an old quarry and coal dump into an outdoor amphitheater for meetings and nature programs like ornitherapy (relaxing with birds). “So many new families are moving into the area that have never seen birds—only pigeons,” says Moser. “To see a cardinal is special.”
A pollinator garden provides an opportunity to see or photograph butterflies. There’s also a certified monarch butterfly waystation where over 200 have been tagged and released annually for the past three years. Usually the first stop for new visitors, Bondsville’s Memorial Garden is dedicated to the WWII-era mill workers. The park also has a quarter-mile gravel nature trail that loops around the mill buildings and along Beaver Creek. A trail also leads to the water tower and a loop to the north of the property through old spruce, maple and oak forest.
“Most ask for basketball courts, not a sustainable garden,” Culp says. “Finally, my tax dollars are going to what I approve. It sure as hell beats a concrete slab.”
Visit bondsvillemillpark.org.
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