Applications for Planning Permission and Listed Building Consent for the restoration of the Grade II* Great Yarmouth Winter Gardens have been lodged. The submission to the National Lottery Heritage Fund to release the 2021 grant award for the Delivery Phase has also been made. These represent significant milestones in this important project.
It has also been announced that Faye Davies, who is leading the Design Team for the restoration project, will be conducting tours of the building this autumn, as part of the 2023 Festival of Architecture Norwich and Norfolk, organised by RIBA Norfolk.
The last survivor of a British seaside tradition, following restoration, the Winter Gardens will once again become a colourful and animated People’s Palace at the heart of the town’s life, economy, and heritage. The project will return the magnificent cast-iron structure to a year-round attraction, incorporating a range of new additions to transform it into a flexible entertainment space, with food and beverage. Alongside planting, the building will include an event space with stage and seating; restaurant and bar; and a multi-purpose activity space hosting various activities and encouraging engagement with the history and plants.
Designed by architects John Watson and William Harvey, the Winter Gardens were first built in Torquay between 1878 and 1881. They were not however a commercial success in the town and were sold for £1,300 to Great Yarmouth. The building was dismantled in sections, transported by barge to Norfolk, and re-erected by the entrance to Wellington Pier in 1904. The Winter Gardens, when erected on Great Yarmouth’s Golden Mile, was described as a ‘people’s palace of glass and steel, a seafront cathedral of light; the shock of the new, the future washed up on a Norfolk beach’.
Historically, the building was filled with exotic plants which allowed the public the chance to see glimpses of faraway places, through an eclectic collection of flora from all corners of the Empire and beyond. Over the decades the use of the Winter Gardens changed to reflect the changing times – often providing large scale and much-loved commercial operations in the food, beverage and events and celebrations markets. After some years as an amusements and entertainment operation, the Winter Gardens closed in 2008 after over 100 years offering a continuous entertainment attraction.
Since then, the Council has sought to find a way of securing the preservation and future of the building, and to return it to the fundamental purposes of its original intention – to provide amenity, enjoyment and learning for local people and visitors to the town. Burrell Foley Fischer’s scheme assisted them with securing nearly £10m of funding for the project from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, as one of just five projects to be supported under their Heritage Horizons Awards scheme.
When restored, The Winter Gardens will be a powerful commercial contributor to the regeneration of Great Yarmouth’s seafront and an innovative, exemplar, environmental project.
The restored frame and new interventions are designed to give a calming backdrop to the vibrant planting scheme and flexible space within the listed building. The historic cast and wrought iron structure will be repaired and repainted to the original off-white colour, with upgraded timber frames and glazing. The new elements will complement the listed structure with a simple contemporary style that will dialogue with the listed building. It will show natural colours and materials palette such as timber, sandy tone terrazzo, and terracotta within a painted new steel frame, providing structural support to the historic cast iron.
The new scheme aims to achieve challenging sustainability targets for a building of this nature and has implemented a 'Net Zero Carbon in Operation' strategy. Passive techniques have been developed to heat, cool and ventilate the space with the minimal use of energy and resources. It will sensitively balance the need for a comfortable environment for people and a suitable environment for plants. The planting scheme will enhance biodiversity, with plants palettes that will bring together endemic species, Victorian Planting such as ferns, geraniums, palm trees, as well as native species from countries around the world linked to Great Yarmouth former trading routes.
Faye, together with Stacy Cosham, Project Coordinator at GYBC’s Capital Projects Office and Rachel Daniel, the council’s Winter Gardens partnership and engagement co-ordinator, will lead a hard hat tour of the building. The tours will provides a unique opportunity to view the historic structure before restoration begins and find out more about the redevelopment plans. Further details and how to book can be found here.