Great Yarmouth Winter Gardens, Great Yarmouth for Great Yarmouth Borough Council with Burrell Foley Fischer, DCA Consultants, The Morton Partnership, Buro Happold, and Coe Design Landscape Architecture

Great Yarmouth Winter Gardens, Great Yarmouth for Great Yarmouth Borough Council with Burrell Foley Fischer, DCA Consultants, The Morton Partnership, Buro Happold, and Coe Design Landscape Architecture

 

The Great Yarmouth Winter Gardens is the UK’s last surviving seaside glasshouse; a landmark loved across generations. Its restoration will transform the currently neglected glass and cast-iron structure into a vibrant year-round destination for leisure, culture and celebration. Part botanic sanctuary, part performance hall, part community living room, it will bring planting, food, events and heritage together under one spectacular roof. Re-opened as a “People’s Palace”, it will boost local pride, attract visitors, support jobs and anchor the wider regeneration of the seafront.

 

 

Describe the context of this project, its neighbourhood and people.

 

The Grade II* Listed Winter Gardens stands on Great Yarmouth’s Golden Mile seafront as the last surviving example of a Victorian seaside glasshouse in the UK. Once filled with light, planting, music and celebration, the building is a landmark woven into the town’s collective memory; a place where families met, danced, gathered and played across generations. Its closure in 2008 left a cultural and emotional gap at the heart of the resort. Great Yarmouth is a place shaped by maritime industry, migration and tourism, with communities who are both resilient and proud, but living within some of the UK’s highest indices of deprivation. The restoration of the Winter Gardens is not simply about preserving a historic structure; it is about restoring a shared civic stage and everyday meeting place that speaks to the identity of the town. The project is a flagship for the seafront’s wider regeneration and a catalyst for skills, employment and cultural participation. It is supported by a Heritage Horizon Award from The National Lottery Heritage Fund and Town Deal funding, reflecting its local, regional and national significance. By returning the Winter Gardens as a welcoming, inclusive and lively public asset, the project strengthens belonging and wellbeing while animating the town’s cultural life year-round. It reconnects the Winter Gardens with the people who shaped it, creating a renewed “People’s Palace” at the heart of Great Yarmouth’s next chapter.

 

Please describe your approach to this future place and its mix of uses. How will it function as a vibrant place? How does it knit into, and serve the needs of, the wider area?

 

The restored Winter Gardens is designed to be a vibrant, inclusive and flexible public environment, blending planting, hospitality, culture, wellbeing and everyday community use under one spectacular roof. The building will offer food and drink spaces, a flexible performance and events hall, a learning and activity space, and layered planting that provides atmosphere, seasonal change and visual drama. The architectural approach restores the cast-iron frame and reinstates the building’s original lightness and transparency, while introducing new timber and glazing elements that sit quietly within the historic volume. A new first-floor gallery weaves through the structure, offering views across the planting and out to the beach and sea. At the heart of the building, a generous “hellerup” stair becomes a social terrace; a place to gather, sit, listen, watch and meet.
 Programming is designed around daily, weekly and seasonal rhythms:
 
 • Morning coffee meet-ups, pram groups and gentle indoor wellbeing activity
 
 • Midday workspace, social lunch spots and informal gathering
 
 • Afternoon school visits, workshops and intergenerational learning
 
 • Evenings animated by music, performance, talks and community celebrations
 
 • Seasonal festivals that celebrate plants, light, food and heritage

 Externally, new landscaping continues the planting scheme and reconnects the Winter Gardens to the seafront and wider Golden Mile, improving permeability and reinforcing the building as a welcoming civic landmark.

 

Please explain the governance of the project, such as its viability, purpose, motivation and any consultation and community engagement undertaken. 

 

The project is led by Great Yarmouth Borough Council, supported by a skilled multi-disciplinary design and delivery team. Governance focuses on long-term operational sustainability, ensuring the building remains active, cared for and financially resilient. The business model combines food and beverage, events, learning programmes and daily public use, reducing reliance on grant funding over time. Community involvement has shaped the project from the outset. Through workshops, open days, story-collecting, schools work and a major “Show and Tell” public event, local residents helped identify priorities: warmth, welcome, affordability, greenery, performance, social space and everyday usefulness. These insights directly informed the design and operational brief; ensuring the Winter Gardens is something created with the community, not simply delivered to it.
 The project is designed to unlock opportunity in one of the UK’s most deprived coastal wards. It will support apprenticeships, volunteering, mentoring and paid roles; develop partnerships with NHS and wellbeing providers; and create new routes into jobs in heritage, hospitality, culture and horticulture. As Councillor Carl Smith noted, “Great Yarmouth’s Winter Gardens are an integral part of our history and loved by generations of people – not just in the town, but across the region and beyond. This regeneration brings back something that belongs to the people - a place of pride, joy and life on the seafront.” The return of the Winter Gardens is both a cultural restoration and a renewed civic commitment to the future of Great Yarmouth.