The clever Pooh sticks fix at Trenance Gardens, Newquay

There is a small black tube strapped to the Wisteria Bridge in Trenance Gardens, and it has quietly solved a problem the gardeners there had been watching grow for a while.

The game is Pooh sticks, the one where you drop a stick off one side of a bridge and race to the other to see whose comes through first. It is simple, free and about as old-fashioned as a family day out gets. The trouble at Trenance was where the sticks were coming from.

One gardener, one simple idea

Stuart Lutherborow, a gardener at Trenance Gardens, noticed visitors snapping twigs and pulling wisteria stems off the plants to play the game on the bridge. Rather than put up a sign telling people to stop, he did the opposite. He fitted a stick holder to the Wisteria Bridge and started filling it each day with sticks that are ready to use.

📷Credit: Cormac

Refilled every single morning

The idea has caught on to the point that the holder needs restocking every morning. Families are playing together, the wisteria is left alone, and more stick stations are now planned for other bridges around the gardens.

Have a go yourself

If you fancy a game, head to the Wisteria Bridge outside the Trenance Heritage Cottages, grab a stick from the holder and challenge whoever you are with to see whose comes out first from under the bridge. The story was shared by Cormac.

For now there is just the one holder, on the Wisteria Bridge. More are on the way.

📷Credit: Cormac