Horatio’s Garden Sheffield & East opens following relocation

Awarded Best in Show at RHS Chelsea 2023, Horatio’s Garden Sheffield & East has officially opened at the Princess Royal Spinal Cord Injuries Centre at Northern General Hospital in Sheffield

Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal opened the garden in July 2025, spending time with patients, families, NHS staff and supporters. She toured the garden, observed a gardening session with Head Gardener Ruth Calder, met designers Charlotte Harris and Hugo Bugg and planted an Aruncus ‘Horatio’ before unveiling a plaque to declare the garden open.

Dr Olivia Chapple OBE EMH, founder of Horatio’s Garden, said: “With Her Royal Highness’s long association with spinal cord injuries and having opened the Princess Royal Spinal Injuries Centre in 1995, Her Royal Highness really understands how vital the garden will be to people as they adjust and find a way to navigate the future.”

The garden, sponsored by Project Giving Back, won Best in Show at RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2023, where it was the first Main Avenue garden designed specifically for the requirements of people with mobility needs. Every element has been reclaimed and relocated to Sheffield, where it now forms the heart of Horatio’s Garden Sheffield & East.

Designed by Charlotte Harris and Hugo Bugg of Harris Bugg Studio, the garden draws inspiration from the history, geography and industry of Yorkshire. Features include a water element made from historic Sheffield cutlery casts and stone cairns built by fifth-generation master stone wallers Lydia and Bert Noble. The garden was built by Sheffield-based contractors RLX Construction and project managed by Gleeds.

Charlotte Harris and Hugo Bugg said: “It’s been an immense privilege to bring this garden to life, stopping along the way at RHS Chelsea as a distilled version and now open at its full size and in its permanent home where it will offer comfort, privacy, calm and joy to people facing life-changing spinal injury. From the very beginning, we wanted to prove that accessible design should never be a tick-box exercise or a compromise. It must and can be thoughtful, beautiful and as emotionally resonant as any other space. To see the garden begin its new chapter here, supporting people in such a meaningful and powerful way, is a very proud moment for us.”

The garden will benefit more than 360 in-patients each year, their families and friends, thousands of outpatients and over 250 NHS staff. Appeal Ambassador George Robinson, who spent seven and a half months in rehabilitation at the centre following a spinal injury, said: “I know what a transformative difference this garden would have made to me here. Somewhere for patients to have some private moments away from the ward, to spend normal times with family, a laugh with friends and to be outside in nature. This place will improve so many people’s lives.”

Margaret Coles, currently rehabilitating at the centre, added: “The garden is amazing – there is so much to look at and it has such a healing effect. My dad was a Yorkshire stonemason and to see the incredible craftsmanship in the garden is beautiful. Being out here away from the hospital environment is really helping me feel more like myself especially having been in the centre for a long time.”
Horatio’s Garden Sheffield & East has been funded entirely by donations and generously supported by the National Garden Scheme, Project Giving Back, charitable trusts and foundations, and many other supporters. STEPS Rehabilitation is the regional partner and will continue to support the garden through volunteering and fundraising.

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Horatio’s Garden Sheffield & East opens following relocation

The relocated garden at the Princess Royal Spinal Cord Injuries Centre at Northern General Hospital in Sheffield

Every item has been reclaimed and relocated to Horatio’s Garden Sheffield & East

Staff and patients agree the garden will transform lives

The whole garden has been designed with mobility needs in mind

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