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THE WELCOME BUILDING, RHS GARDEN BRIDGEWATER SALFORD


A warm welcome


With sustainability at the core of the brief for a multi-purpose building at the Royal Horticultural Society’s new garden in Salford, Hodder+Partners went to town with timber, with award-winning results. Roseanne Field speaks to Stephen Hodder


R


HS Garden Bridgewater, the Royal Horticultural Society’s fifth national garden, sits on the site of the former


Worsley New Hall in Salford – a 154 acre estate designed and built in 1850 and demolished shortly after World War II. Although there had been many attempts to redevelop the site, nothing had come to fruition until the RHS came across it during their search for a site to locate their fifth national garden on.


The RHS came to an agreement with Salford City Council and Peel Land & Property, which led to landscape architect Tom Stuart-Smith, vice president of the RHS and a former Best In Show winner at Chelsea Flower Show, designing a masterplan for a phased redevelopment. This included the regeneration of a large walled garden, together with a car park and visitor centre. In 2016, the RHS invited architectural firms to compete to design


ADF SEPTEMBER 2022


various elements including the visitor centre – which is now known as The Welcome Building.


After winning the project, Hodder+Partners worked to secure planning consent for the conversion of a horticultural services yard, visitor centre, and car park, as well as old stables and potting sheds. While designing the building, they continued work with Stuart-Smith on the immediate landscape, while the conversion of the outbuildings was managed in-house by the RHS.


Brief Initially, the practice was given a “fairly cursory brief,” says Stephen Hodder, chair at Hodder+Partners, for “a membership area, retail area, and restaurant together with a glasshouse and outdoor plant sales.” The accommodation was to be “equally divided, and roughly 1,000 m2


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