Winter Garden

Garden

Explorer Tom

Sheffield’s Winter Garden sits beside the Peace Gardens and Millennium Galleries, a great timber-and-glass lung in the middle of the city. Walk in from Surrey Street and the traffic gives way to leaves, tall arches and the pleasing feeling that somebody has smuggled a forest into your shopping trip. The council says more than 2,500 plants from around the world fill this temperate glasshouse. It stretches about 70 metres and rises 22 metres, so there is space to look up as well as around; the structure could accommodate thousands of ordinary domestic greenhouses. This is a garden for a slow wander, a few minutes of shelter or a determined search for the most improbable leaf. The plants are not competing for your attention, though several appear confident of winning. The Winter Garden connects directly with the Millennium Galleries, and the Peace Gardens are next door. Shops and places for coffee or light refreshments are part of the building, which makes it easy to combine a green pause with a longer city-centre visit. Look closely at how the timber arches repeat overhead: the roof is half the show. It is a public indoor garden, so you can enjoy it in ordinary clothes and without a ticket, a rare triumph over British weather. Sheffield City Council lists free entry and opening from 8am to 8pm Monday to Saturday, and 10am to 5pm on Sundays and bank holidays; it closes on Christmas Day. Private events sometimes close it from 6pm, so check ahead for an evening visit. Find it at 90 Surrey Street, step inside, and give the city a few minutes to become unexpectedly leafy.