Apothecary Garden Restoration Complete

We’re pleased to announce that the restoration work on the Apothecary Garden at Sheffield Manor Lodge has now been completed!

Funded by Tesco Stronger Starts in association with Groundwork, the restoration project has significantly improved the Apothecary Garden, which had started to fall into disrepair over recent years.

The Apothecary Garden is very popular with visitors to Sheffield Manor Lodge, providing a beautiful, educational and peaceful space which brings together the themes of nature and history.

Much of the restoration work was carried out by The Green Estate’s volunteers, who have learnt more about herbal plants, developed green skills and taken pride in their work as they watched the space transform.

The restoration project included:

Replanting a diverse herbal and healing plant collection

Visitors can now enjoy the enhanced sensory experience of a diverse collection of herbal and healing plants, alongside learning more about the history of herbal medicine. The Apothecary Garden now has improved usefulness with school groups who visit the site on trips, because they have a wider range of plants to interact with when learning about historic herbal medicines.

Incorporating plant labelling and interpretation

We have been able to enhance the plant labelling and interpretation of the Apothecary Garden to educate visitors and inform them of the plants we now have and what they may have been used for historically.

Rebuilding the timber raised bed structures and repairing/resurfacing the gravelled floor

As well as being more enjoyable, the Apothecary Garden is now much safer and accessible for visitors. Previously, the timbers of the raised beds had become rotten, causing them to crumble and become unsafe and unsightly. The gravel floor was uneven, with the plastic matrix underneath coming up in places. All this has now been rectified as part of the restoration project, and so it is once again a space that can be safely enjoyed by visitors.

The restoration project would not have been possible without the backing of the community, who voted for us to receive the funding in local supermarkets, so a huge thank you to anyone who voted for us!