The glass pavilions
Three linked Victorian glasshouses from 1836, reopened in 2003, handsome from outside and modest within.
On opening day, 29 June 1836, twelve thousand people pushed through a grand stone gateway to see what the garden designer Robert Marnock had made of a hillside above Sheffield. Nearly two centuries on, the gateway is still there, entry has been free since the late nineteenth century, and the hillside is still the defining fact of the place: nineteen acres (about 7.7 hectares) sloping from Clarkehouse Road at the top down towards Ecclesall Road at the bottom, roughly a mile and a half south-west of the city centre. The visual heart is the run of three linked glass pavilions by Benjamin Broomhead Taylor, Grade II* listed, rescued from decay and reopened in 2003. Inside are temperate and warm-climate plants, big leaves straining at the roof, and a layout that nods to Victorian taste. Be honest with yourself: anyone who has seen the Palm House at Kew or the glasshouses in Edinburgh will find these small, and a walk through takes twenty minutes at most. They are better from the outside, glass catching the light above the Broadwalk and the restored fountain below. What actually earns the visit is drifting through some twenty gardens within the garden: the Rose Garden, a Mediterranean garden on a south-facing bank, the Rock and Water Garden redrawn in 1929-30, an Evolution Garden built around the fossilised stump of a giant club moss some three hundred million years old, and the Four Seasons Garden by the gate. The curiosities are gentle ones. The Victorian bear pit, a round stone enclosure where a live bear was once kept for amusement, now holds an eight-foot steel bear called Robert; a bronze given to the gardens in 1934, Pan, Spirit of the Wood, hides among the trees. In all there are around five thousand plant species, plus national collections of genera only specialists will recognise. For families: the site is enclosed, safe and pushchair-friendly along the Broadwalk, but the side paths are steep and some are gravel, and whoever is pushing will feel the climb back up to the top gate. Children rate the bear pit and the lawns above the flowers. A cafe, Joni, in the old Curator's House by the main gate does coffee, breakfast and brunch, and there are toilets there and at the Thompson Road entrance. The gardens open daily at 8am and close at 7.45pm in summer (pavilions 9am to 7.30pm) but at 3.50pm in winter (pavilions to 3.30pm), when a bell is rung ten minutes before the gates are locked. Late April to June is the best window, when azaleas, rhododendrons and roses are out; in July and August it stays green and open, a fine hour of calm between the shops on Ecclesall Road and tomorrow's drive into the Peak District. There is no car park inside the gardens: use the street or the private Berkeley Precinct car park across Ecclesall Road.
Three linked Victorian glasshouses from 1836, reopened in 2003, handsome from outside and modest within.
A stone enclosure that once held a live bear, now home to a steel bear called Robert and a favourite with children.
Some twenty themed areas, from the Rose Garden to the Evolution Garden with its fossilised stump, at their best April to June.
Clarkehouse Road, Sheffield S10 2LN
If you have a spare hour, yes, especially with children who need to run after a journey; it is free and next to the Ecclesall Road shops. Do not make it the reason for the trip, though: the glass pavilions are small, in winter the gates shut before 4pm, and if time is tight the Peak District itself comes first.
The main Broadwalk between the gate and the pavilions is paved and easy, but the whole site is on a slope and the side paths are gravelly and steep in places, though there is a step-free alternative route around every flight of steps. Anyone who finds walking hard can stay in the upper section near Clarkehouse Road; there are plenty of benches, and a few Blue Badge spaces at the top of the drive off Thompson Road.