Conference venue

I have been helping to run a project at Franklin's Gardens, the home of Northampton Saints.

In the nineteenth century, it was a leisure garden, with ornamental lake, trees and shrubs, bandstands and other entertainment.

The lake is still there, and a fragment of the shrubbery remains, but the rest is now a first-class and very attractive rugby statdium for one of Europe's top teams. When the players misbehave or turn up late for training, they are made to swim across the lake, fully clothed...