Rose Garden Café Restoration & Refurbishment

Huge thanks to:

Norton Players

Kindling Choir

Nether Edge Voices

The Night Chorus

for their spectacular performances. They put on such a show and it was brilliant to hear their amazing voices and sing along. Thank you for supporting us and bringing cheer to the cafe.

Thank you also to all the amazing fundraising members who shook buckets, sold raffle tickets, was our santa, manned stalls and spread the word, you're amazing.

Finally thank you to all the members of the public supporting us. We have a long way to go but hope you will stick with us, this was only one of many fundraising events. Thank you!

Thank you for thinking about Fundraising for the restoration of the Rose Garden Cafe!

To register your Fundraising event with us, please complete the application form at this link: https://forms.gle/K2JDHupEqTfhWV5PA and we will be able to send you an "Authority to Fundraise" certificate if you need to prove who you are fundraising for.

We'll also then be able to include your Event on our Fundraising Dates, promote it on our social accounts and support you in achieving your goals!

Useful Documents

Below are some documents that you may find useful to download (open in new tabs):

• A-Z of Fundraising
• Fundraising Event Risk Assessment Template

Current & Upcoming Fundraising Events

• 7th December - Christmas Craft Stall at the Norfolk Park Cafe
• 14th December - Carols in the Cafe

Supporting image by Glenn Sontag from Pixaby

Thanks to Carol and all the Aqua Girls team from Graves Leisure Centre, Friends of Graves Park, Save the Rose Garden Cafe Campaign and Julie and all the staff at Dukes for organising and supporting the recent Craft Stall in the Rose Garden Cafe.

Together they raised an amazing £1,227.72 towards the restoration of the cafe! What an amazing result.

And HUGE thanks to everyone who purchased an item from the stall or placed an order :)

FOGP have signed up to Easy Fundraising so that its easier than ever for you to support the restoration of the Rose Garden Cafe!
By signing up, whenever you shop online a percentage is donated to the FOGP Rose Garden campaign.

By shopping at over 4,000 registered shops and sites – including eBay, Argos, John Lewis, ASOS, Booking.com and M&S – you'll be donating and it won’t cost you a penny extra to help us raise funds.

All you need to do is:

1. Go to https://www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/fogravespark/?utm_campaign=raise-more and join for free.
2. Every time you shop online, go to easyfundraising first to find the site you want and start shopping.
3. After you’ve checked out, the retailer will make a donation to Friends of Graves Park at no extra cost to you whatsoever!

There are no catches or hidden charges and the Partnership will be really grateful for your donations.

On Sunday Gertie led the first of her 'Putting People of the Past into the Park' fundraising walks. Many thanks to those who attended and their donations. Listening to everyone it became incredibly clear how important the park was to people’s lives, with all sharing their fascinating memories of the park and café. The next fundraising walk is at 6pm on Tuesday 3^rd September if you would like to join then meet in front of the Rose Garden Cafe.

The reopening event was attended by hundreds of people who were queuing out of the door by 9:30 for their egg and chips, muffins coffee and cake. People were jubilant and overjoyed to see the café reopened and cleaned up with its new floor and the staff sporting their ‘Dukes on the Rose Garden’ logos. At about 10:30 am we had some speeches from Caroline Dewar the Chair Of Friends of Graves Park retracing how we got here and what the future holds.

Liz Hnat spoke about the impact of the 11,000 signatures as one of the predominant reasons for the victory and getting the café reopened and Councillor Richard Williams, Chair of the Council Charity Trustee Sub Committee who congratulated everybody on their hard work and perseverance. Richard has stood by us from the beginning and was at the early protests and lobbying. At some stage in the future, the café will have to be closed temporarily to undertake the structural work on the front wall and a new roof along with the full refurbishment which people asked for during the public consultation. Our next job is to arrive at a fundraising target based on the estimates for those works, and we’ll be asking everybody to get behind a mammoth fundraising campaign and we will be seeking individual donations, grants and support from the likes of the Heritage Lottery Fund and others.

It was nice, after nearly two years to walk into the reopened café and to really believe that we’ve been instrumental together in saving such an important part of Sheffield‘s Heritage, which people love and want to see preserved for the next 100 years.

Structural Engineer Report Summary

We are excited and delighted to bring you this latest update from the Rose Garden Café Partnership. We met with Jenny Bulmer the conservation engineer from Alan Wood & Partners to view the results of the new ground investigations and structural findings. The structural engineer’s detailed design work alongside the new ground investigations undertaken in May 2024 have concluded that the poor foundations are the sole reason for the lean in the wall. Her recommendations based on this new information are that the front wall should remain propped by scaffolding until refurbishment works take place and that any scaffolding supporting the roof can be removed. This paves the way for the reduction of the internal scaffolding in the café and our priority is now to reopen the café’s internal seating and catering as soon as possible.

Structural Engineer Report Detail

• The Rose Garden Café Partnership (Friends of Graves Park, Save the Rose Garden Café Campaign and SCC) worked together to cocreate a design brief and appoint structural engineer, Alan Wood & Partners to undertake detailed structural design.
• Following review of all existing surveys, information and a site visit, Alan Wood & Partners advised that further ground investigations were required to conclusively determine the cause of the lean to front wall and understand if the scaffolding could be removed.
• The new ground investigations were undertaken and the structural engineer report concluded that the front wall is suffering rotational failure due to poor subsoils/insufficiently deep foundations and that no other walls are affected. The report also concluded that the main pitched roof structure is in reasonable condition.
• The structural engineer has recommended that the scaffolding to the front wall remains necessary, but any scaffolding that is propping the roof only can be removed.
• In order to make the front wall safe, the structural engineer’s recommended solution is to take down the existing front wall, retaining materials for reuse where suitable. Then to construct a new footing for full length of front elevation, taken to suitable natural bearing strata and rebuild the new wall to replicate existing.

We are excited to share the results of the recent public consultation on the Rose Garden Café restoration and refurbishment. We recieved1557 responses to the survey, via online and paper submissions from 41 of the 45 Sheffield (S) postcodes. These range from the Stockbridge Valley in the north to the Dronfield Valley in the south, out into neighbouring Derbyshire in the west and Nottinghamshire in the east

Click here to see the wonderful infographic created by Partnership member Liz Hnat

The questions were grouped into a number of themes – the headlines of which are shared below:

Visiting the Park

• Over half of the respondents visit the park at least once a week, with more than 25% visiting either daily or several times a week. This feedback is therefore grounded in the views of those who use the park the most.
• The most common answers to “Who do you visit the park with?” were “Family” then “Friends” with the third most popular answer being “Alone”, showing that our park is a space for all to enjoy.
• “Visiting the Rose Garden Café” itself was the second most popular reason for visiting Graves Park, next to simply walking through our wonderful space (often with a dog!).

Restoration Priorities

• The highest number of responses were for the Heritage and Identity of the Café to be respected, notably the exterior look and the clock tower being restored.
• The next priority given by the consultation is to ensure the inside of the Café is an adaptable space, maximising the possible community uses.
• Accessibility and Sustainability featured next highest on the priority list, asking us to ensure that the space is used by as wider range of people as possible, and that the café makes full use of energy efficient and low waste / maintenance technologies.

Facilities Priorities

• The ability for the space to be used by community groups was ranked number one on the priorities in the consultation.
• The provision of an indoor play / flexible space for young children within the café ranked the second highest on the wish list.
• The third highest position was taken by the need to refurbish the current toilet blocks

In addition to these headlines we have had lots of great individual contributions , notably around improving the kitchen and the outdoor seating areas, all of which will now be taken into the design process. We will be working alongside local professionals and subject matter experts to create a brief that will see the Rose Garden Café restored, rejuvenated and reborn.

The additional ground investigations have now been undertaken to understand the building foundations. The results of the investigations will enable the specialist structural engineer from Alan Wood & Partners to complete her proposed solutions for the front wall.

Photos of ground investigations being undertaken.