HRH The Princess Royal officially opens award-winning Horatio's Garden

HRH The Princess Royal officially opens award-winning Horatio’s Garden

HRH The Princess Royal has opened Horatio’s Garden Sheffield & East – the award-winning garden at the Princess Royal Spinal Injuries Centre at the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield, one of the eleven gardens part funded by the National Garden Scheme.

Her Royal Highness spent time with people with spinal injuries and their families, NHS staff as well as meeting Horatio’s Garden founders Dr. Olivia and David Chapple. She toured the garden, observing a gardening session with Head Gardener Ruth Calder and met its designers Charlotte Harris and Hugo Bugg, appeal ambassador actor George Robinson and the supporters who have helped bring it to life. She planted an Aruncus ‘Horatio’ and unveiled a plaque to officially declare it open.

Horatio’s Garden Sheffield & East started its life two years ago as a show garden which won Best in Show and gold at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2023 and was the first garden at Chelsea designed for people with mobility needs. It is now one of eight extraordinary gardens in the heart of NHS spinal injury rehabilitation centres, where people can spend many months and up to a year after a life-changing spinal injury.

Designed by Charlotte Harris and Hugo Bugg from Harris Bugg Studio, Horatio’s Garden Sheffield & East is inspired by the history, geography and industry of Yorkshire including a water feature made from historic Sheffield cutlery casts and stone cairns built by fifth-generation master stone wallers Lydia and Bert Noble.

Dr Olivia Chapple OBE EMH, founder of Horatio’s Garden said: “We were honoured to welcome HRH The Princess Royal to open Horatio’s Garden Sheffield & East. 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.”

Appeal Ambassador George Robinson, well known for his role in the Netflix series Sex Education, spent seven and a half months in rehabilitation at the spinal injury centre here following a high-level spinal injury playing rugby in South Africa 2015. He 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, who has been rehabilitating at the Princess Royal Spinal Injuries Centre since May said: “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 in away from the hospital environment is really helping me feel more like myself especially having been in the centre for a long time. I can already see what a huge difference this is going to make to my recovery.”

Annette Laban, Chair of Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation said: “We are delighted to have opened Horatio’s Garden at the Princess Royal Spinal Injuries Unit. There is no doubt that it will play an important part in the rehabilitation of so many of our patients and provide a lovely space for them to enjoy with their family and friends. It was a pleasure to welcome back HRH The Princess Royal to see the garden and to have the opportunity to hear first hand what it means to our patients and staff. We are very grateful to the Horatio’s Garden team and their supporters for bringing the garden to life.”

Horatio’s Garden Sheffield & East will support a huge catchment area with hundreds of in-patients, their family and friends, thousands of outpatients, as well as over 250 NHS staff looking after them that will now benefit from it every year.

Horatio’s Garden Sheffield & East has been funded entirely by donations and has been generously supported by the National Garden Scheme, Project Giving Back, Sanita Merali Trust, Garfield Weston Foundation, Sheffield Hospitals Charity, The Geoff and Fiona Squire Foundation, The Band Trust, The Clothworkers’ Foundation, Pears Foundation and many other generous supporters.

The garden has been built by Sheffield-based contractors RLX Construction and project managed by Gleeds. Our regional partner is STEPS Rehabilitation. Throughout the coming year, they’ll be generously supporting everyone in the garden by volunteering, fundraising and helping in all the ways they can.

For more about the National Garden Scheme’s support of Horatio’s Garden
click here