Community 'toytropolis' garden to raise money for North Yorkshire charity

Over 200 toys are on display in Paul Iveson's front garden on Mayfield Grove

Author: Natalie HigginsPublished 1st Nov 2021
Last updated 1st Nov 2021

A Harrogate man has set up a 'toytropolis' in his front garden to raise money for a charity that helped him in his own recovery.

Paul Ivison has got over 200 toys in his garden for families to enjoy in which he said is important after the "difficult time" children have had.

Toys range from old and new, such as Thomas the Tank Engine, Lego and Paw Patrol.

Visitors are encouraged to donate any spare change in the boxes provided which will go to North Yorkshire Horizons, a charity which Paul volunteered at for five years.

Families are invited to play with the toys in the garden

He said: "Many years ago I had addiction issues and the organisation prior to Horizons supported me so I wanted to give something back. Now and during the pandemic more people have struggled with addiction so I decided to tie the two together.

"The idea initially was just having some toys on the windowsills but it seems to have just snowballed with people donating toys to the garden. It's gone quite crazy as we've got toys in every inch of the garden."

The garden is in aid of local charity Horizons

Paul has already created two spring and summer gardens and already has plans in place for a winter and spring feature next year.

His most recent garden was created to encourage people to open up about their mental health with all the features painted in black and white: black to represent bad days and white to represent good days.

Since then Paul's supported several people and helped them get help from the crisis team at Harrogate hospital.

Paul, added: "I haven't done an autumn garden before so I came up with the idea, got some toys and had some donated, superheroes and things like that, to make people smile during the winter months.

"The most comments I do get from the last couple of years of doing this is that my garden makes people smile. It brings a lot of joy to people so I thought the kids have been through a really tough time so let's cheer them up and alongside that raise money for a great organisation."

He's planning on having half a dozen Christmas trees and lights from the end of November for his winter display and in the spring will have a Pride garden with items painted in the Pride colours.

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