In the Hughes' gardens, there weren't many additions of the kind you now often see, fancy gazebos, or ponds with a fountain, or a separation in the hedge leading to another part. It was very much a no-nonsense garden. Very small, relatively, anyway. Still, here's a post devoted to what used to be there. First the sandpit:

This creation was no doubt Grandpa's contribution to the arrival of the third generation. It was built in very hard brick and flintstone and the sand inside was kept clean thanks to a great wooden tar-covered lid which was lowered on it at night to stop the rain out, but also cats from using it as their own territory. In the pictures with the first batch of cousins above, we can't see this addition, but below is a picture where on can see it, and how wide the sandpit used to be:

I remember the lid was lifted for us to use the pit and was stood at the back, against the fence. In the sand, there used to be the usual seaside spades and forks, along with other interlocking scoops and small shapes which could reproduce sand turtles or sand towers. The sand was regularly sieved and checked for dead leaves and other impurities. Later other toys were brought inside, and I'm sure a number of Dinky cars were left to rust inside the sand! Later still, when I suppose fewer children came to play, the sandpit started to have its sand mixed with soil, even though it probably got changed over the years. Here's a late pic of grandma and AB's family sitting on the sandpit:

Next in the garden, was a tall container whose function other more knowledgeable people will certainly tell us about, but which myself I can't explain. It's in the corner behind Jo and Tini and it seems to have hinges on the lower side:

Could this big black box have been a sort of compost box? or tool box? I'm pretty sure it wasn't there any more later on.

Then later, exactly when I can't say, came the water collectors which can be seen on the left of the picture below, next to the metallic bins at least one of which used to contain ashes from the fire:

We can see the water collector behind Jean's armchair on this other picture:

BTW, he's playing with a fake plastic pair of glasses cum big nose which we bought somewhere IN PG (WH Smith at the Triangle perhaps, but I'm not sure). 

In Auntie Olive's garden, not far from the one step down from MP's garden (and the post where he had placed a handle I believe for his mother to hold on to when she was coming in to n°9), there was the only shed of the two gardens:

Now I don't know when exactly it was bought and placed there, but I'd say in the 1970s because I don't remember it from the early times. It's already been spoken about on this blog, some people remembering its strong creosote smell and how it used to contain tennis balls and other playthings on top of the gardening tools and the mower which was in regular use (see picture further up and here)

What is a pity is that I don't have a photo of the lawn roller which used to be left in the corner of Auntie Olive's back yard and slowly rusted there. I believe she used it occasionally, but it didn't look like it was very much in use in the older days. I think it looked like this one:

Do you remember being told off because you were playing with the thing? I think I do...