Royal Opening for Award Winning Accessible Garden

HRH The Princess Royal has officially opened an accessible garden for patients at a spinal cord injuries unit at the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield.

Horatio’s Garden Sheffield & East started its life two years ago as a show garden, winning 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 throughout the UK, where people can spend many months and up to a year after a life-changing spinal injury.

Designed by Charlotte Harris and Hugo Bugg, 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.

“We were honoured to welcome HRH The Princess Royal to open Horatio’s Garden Sheffield & East,” said Dr Olivia Chapple OBE EMH, founder of Horatio’s Garden, who presented Her Royal Highness with a symbolic plant from the garden, an Aruncus ‘Horatio’.

"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."

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.

To find out more visit https://www.horatiosgarden.org.uk/