A FORMER Dorchester resident is backing calls to give a new lease of life to a town garden that was originally designed as a Quaker burial ground.

Ruth Roberts, 59, said she would like to put a memorial bench for her parents into the Colliton Street garden if permission can be gained from the land owner.

Mrs Roberts, who now lives in Chiddingfold, Surrey, recalls living with her parents at 19 Colliton Street before it was commercial premises and seeing them tend to the nearby garden.

She said: "My parents lived in the house from the 1930s for their whole lives, until my father passed away and my mother had a stroke in 1983 and had to move out.

"I remember coming back from the grammar school for girls in the town as a girl and seeing them tending to the garden and keeping it looking nice."

Mrs Roberts said the responsibility for looking after the site was handed over to the new householders who moved into her parents' old property.

She said she does not now know who owns the land but that it was accepted that the new householders would care for the garden after moving in. She said she also recalls seeing an ash tree in the area as a child. "I remember that being gone one day when I was on my way back from school and I was upset.

"If that garden does become a quiet little venue for reflection in the town then I would very much like to put a bench there to remember my parents."

The garden is believed to have begun life as a burial ground for a nearby Quaker meeting house before the ownership changed hands.

Dorchester town crier Alistair Chisholm and others are calling for the area's current owners to be identified and for the garden to be restored.

Mrs Roberts said that her interest in the garden and her parents' old home was rekindled after she visited Dorchester and saw that the building was being advertised for sale.