Martin Tod welcomes news about Dean Garnier garden

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Sun 28th Sep 2008

Reacting to the news that cathedral authorities have decided not to build on Dean Garnier Garden, Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate, Martin Tod, a great-great-great-great grandson of Dean Garnier commented:

"I'm very pleased. The Dean Garnier garden is a wonderful oasis of calm in the middle of Winchester. There's nowhere else quite like it. Dean Garnier was a mad keen gardener who did a huge amount for the city as well as the cathedral - and also wasn't frightened of change - but I suspect he would have been pleased that the garden had been saved."

"I look forward to seeing what comes next - particularly with the plans to display the Winchester Bible. The Winchester Bible is so stunningly beautiful - possibly Winchester's greatest artistic treasure - and if it now proves possible to develop a plan for the cathedral that everyone can support and which gives the bible the setting it deserves, then that can only be a good thing."

Martin's great-great-great-great-grandfather, Thomas Garnier, was Dean of Winchester and features in Winchester Museum (which he supported financially) as an 'anti-muckabite' campaigner to bring a sewerage system to Winchester in the 1860s. He was Dean of Winchester from 1840 - 1872. His death and funeral was the lead story on the Hampshire Chronicle for two weeks running.

Dean Garnier was a founding member of the Hampshire Horticultural Society in 1818 and had a notable garden in Bishopstoke which was visited by Prince Albert.