After six years in the making, the new café building at Wickersley’s Winthrop Gardens has now opened – and its volunteers are looking forward to an evergreen future.
The sensory garden, which has been owned by Wickersley Parish Council since 2016, has become a lifeline for the community.
As well as being an accessible place for a stroll amongst ornamental trees, herbaceous borders and a rose and wisteria pergola, Winthrop Gardens is a hive of activity with lots of social groups running throughout the month for people who are lonely, isolated or living with dementia.
A new café building has been needed for some time to give their volunteers scope to welcome more visitors on site and expand their reach within the community.
And thanks to money from the Government’s community ownership fund, their plans have come to fruition. The new café is modern and stylish, perched up by the atrium with full-length French doors looking out onto the nearby fields.
Inside, the bright and airy café has doubled their seating capacity. There are also as many tables and chairs outside ready for the warmer climes of spring and summer.
Volunteers now have a spacious and organised kitchen to prepare their home-baked cakes, freshly made soups and other light refreshments.
“We’ve tried to futureproof it as much as we can to make it more accessible for our volunteers. Thirty-five of our volunteers were involved in designing the kitchen and we’ve thought about everything from the height of the drawers so they’re not bending down, to having stools and trolleys to help make work easier in the kitchen.
“We’ve got over 90 volunteers at Winthrop ranging from in their 40s up to 86. As the retirement age increases, we know the age of our volunteers will also increase so we’ve had to be better prepared,” says Anna Chester.
Wickersley Parish Council planted the idea of having a new brick-built café back in 2018. But after the Covid pandemic, building costs skyrocketed and they needed to look at more affordable alternatives.
The modular building is an insulated concrete formwork system with outstanding thermal performance. When we visited in early February it was fresh outside, but lovely and warm inside without any heating on.
It’s been funded in part by £264,000 from the now defunct community ownership fund. The parish council had to match-fund twenty percent of this, and fortunately Winthrop volunteers and customers had raised over £120,000.
After receiving the money in December 2023, the team had 12 months to complete the project. Work began last August by West Yorkshire-based contractors Claywoods, they received the keys just before Christmas, and it was opened by Rother Valley MP Jake Richards at the end of January.
Donations from the community have helped finish off the look of the new café. West Riding Freemasons donated £13,000 to buy new furniture. A collection from the funeral of former volunteer Norma Ledbury has paid for a kitchen island. And crowdfunding of £2,250 has turned an old boiler room into an outside toilet for the volunteer gardening team and walking groups.
The development works have has also extended down into the garden.
The old café area will be turned into a pétanque (or French boules) court, with help from Bramley and Wickersley Lions. While Travis Perkins have donated materials to create some new accessible raised beds that will be filled with herbs, sensory plants and display flowers.
The beds have been designed by volunteer Kevin, at a wheelchair-friendly height and width so that disabled visitors and school children can do some planting.
The therapeutic, sensory garden is still thriving, and the gardening volunteers are looking forward to it being at its luscious best in the spring and summer months. The one-acre garden was built on the site of an old water treatment works in 2005.
Winthrop has grown around it, thanks to the dedication of Anna and her team of volunteers.
Anna says a third of their volunteers live alone, and often the first conversation they have is when they get to Winthrop. Volunteering gives them a purpose and they enjoy being part of a team.
Volunteer Jane joined the Winthrop team to give herself a break while caring for her late father who had dementia. She started as a gardening volunteer but now works in the café once a week.
“I love the camaraderie here. There’s just something about the people, a kindness you don’t get at a lot of commercial cafes. We’ve all got the same goal and everyone cares about each other’s wellness.
“The others were brilliant when I lost my dad. Even on the days where I think I could do without coming, I get myself here and feel amazing when I get home. The new building is just the icing on the cake. It’s been a total transformation.”
Having had a career in health and social care management and consultancy, Anna has championed the need for more community groups on site to improve the health and wellbeing of local residents.
There is now a walking group who do a three-mile walk each Wednesday, and a seasonal strollers group who do shorter pram and wheelchair-friendly routes on Tuesdays. Rotherham Sight and Sound also use Winthrop as a start and end point for their walks with people who are visually impaired or have hearing loss.
A twice-monthly memory café has been running for many years now and the new café means they no longer have to turn new members away. An off shoot from this has been a new carers’ group who meet monthly, and Anna has created a handbook for members who are newly diagnosed with dementia.
There is also a monthly men’s club for guys who live alone. They meet up for a quiz, games and a bowl of homemade soup. Anna hopes to start up a ‘men in sheds’ group later in the year.
The site is open Tuesday to Thursday between 10.30am and 3pm, extending to 4pm from 1st April.
They’ll be hosting their annual Bake Off event on Saturday 12th April between 11am and 4pm. And plans are underway for a vintage afternoon tea service for the 80th anniversary of VE Day between Tuesday 6th and Thursday 8th May.
You can find them at Second Lane, off Morthern Road, Wickersley S66 1EE. Or for more information about the groups or volunteering opportunities, call 07397 039 226 or find them on Facebook.
