Sheffield Winter Garden, Sheffield (must see)

The historic Heart of the City regeneration project of Sheffield, begun in 2004 and completed in 2016, has produced the Peace Gardens and Millennium Galleries. The latest addition to the project is the Winter Garden, opened by Queen Elizabeth II in May 2003. It is the largest greenhouse in the United Kingdom in the last century. It is 77 yards long and 23 yards high.

The Winter Garden was designed by Pringle Richards Sharratt and Bruno Happold architectural firms. The huge glass tunnel has frost protection as low as four degrees Celsius. It is home to more than 2,500 plants from around the world. The structure is made of a glued laminated timber network of weather-resistant larch wood.

The Garden is thoroughly landscaped with exotic trees and shrubs under glass and wood arches of varying heights. Warm in the winter, it is a welcome counter to the nearby open-air Peace Gardens. Three garden environments have been formed within the arches, laid out with meandering ramped paths among the wild-looking planted beds.

The overall horticultural design of the Garden was provided by Waddles, a horticultural architecture and design firm supervising plant sourcing and procurement. Most of the trees are from the Southern Hemisphere. The beds contain well over 150 different species of plants. Some trees are over 33 feet tall and growing.

The Winter Garden has won more than 13 awards in its short history, among them two Green Flag Awards, the Civic Trust Award, and the 2004 Royal Fine Arts Commission Award. There is direct access to the Millennium Gallery, Millennium Square, and Tudor Square.