Declining membership, rising costs and financial losses have meant the closure of a Farnham institution, the Farnham Gardening Society, just short of its 81st birthday.

The Farnham and District Allotment Society and Gardening Association began in May 1944 with the intention of educating and encouraging local people in horticulture.

It continued that tradition and in the 1980s was involved with Conservative minister Michael Heseltine’s plans to plant gardens in industrial areas.

The meetings over the years were held in Church House, St Joan’s Hall, St Joan’s Centre, and eventually at the URC Church Hall.

Betty Knight, now 90, remembers these meetings well, including those of the women’s committee. When she joined in 1964 there were 400 members and separate committees for men and women on the grounds that they had “different interests; not a practice continued these days”.

Betty’s husband, the late Brian Knight, would organise regular society trips and holidays, some to gardening festivals around country, hiring Farnham Coaches to take them.

The society then hosted three gardening show a year, and sometimes teamed up with Bells Piece, the Farnham Leonard Cheshire Home, for joint ventures.

As membership dwindled, however, so did the shows and the society was wound up on January 15, at a meeting attended by 15 of the remaining 18 members.

Jane Gates, treasurer, said: “It was with great sadness that the society had to be dissolved, due to a rigid constitution stating that there had to be at least six committee members.

“Due to there now being only 18 members, the accounts showing losses annually, and the reluctance of the committee to re-stand, there was no option but to have to close.

“The committee and members remember the friendship, camaraderie and great knowledge gained by being members from the excellent speakers over the years, and it is with great sorrow that it has had to close.”