Beeforth’s Hive

The South Cliff Gardens Maintenance Team used to work out of an old brick shed nestled behind the Rose Garden. The building was not big enough for the gardeners to work from, it had limit heating, no windows and was very basic. During the development stage of the restoration project extensive consultation took place with the local community and the annual visiting community, to discover what people wanted to see in the South Cliff Gardens and how we could more greatly encourage people to engage with the heritage of the space.

The consultation highlighted a need from the local community for a space to:

• Host a class of school children, so they could learn about the gardens.
• Allow an area for the Friends group to go on wet days and organise talks and events.
• Hold workshops, activities, and meeting for a wider range community group.
• A space which facilitates the number of volunteers to grow.
• Be a space for culture and creativity.
• Help to bridge the gap between the council and the community.
• To provide an area for sports and activity groups to use in the cold weather.
• To connect people to their landscape through access to exceptional views.

On top of this, North Yorkshire Council required a new building to:

• Create its own energy and be as sustainable as possible.
• Be made of natural materials and blend into the heritage setting.
• Would be big enough to allow for the gardening team to grow.
• Have no additional weight impact on the cliff and consider wind loading on the structure.
• Be as welcoming to all and include accessible toilets, be as accessible as possible, have a DDA parking space and be dementia friendly.
• Be a safe and secure place.

Following the consultation, the Design Team explored the idea of constructing a new building in the gardens that would meet the above combined design brief. There were several challenging and limiting factors effecting the design, the biggest of which was the weight restrictions and wind loading. We could not build anything in the gardens that would add any additional load, due to the sensitive nature of the cliff and the associate risks, which we have seen acutely from the history of the Holbeck Hotel. Therefore, the new building would have to be equal to the weight of the old one, the only way of increasing this would be to remove weight from soil and create a cellular raft foundation underneath the structure.

The National Lottery Heritage Fund supported the new building and felt it was fundamental to the future sustainability and management and maintenance of the gardens going forward, so approved the design and the Beeforth’s Hive building was approved the go ahead for construction.

Today the building is used for a range of activities from art exhibitions, coffee mornings, play groups and poetry drives to Yoga, historic talks, and gaming groups. It’s even home to our new South Cliff Garden’s Choir and is much loved by the community. We work on a bartering system, if you are a group who has supported the project through the development, you can use the room for free as a thank you from us. If you are new to the project but would like to book the space we will charge a nominal fee, or we are happy to discuss other contributions that support the sustainability of the space such as volunteering as an alternative.

Find out more about our Design Team who are made up of: Southern Green (Principle Landscape Architect), Mosedale Gillatt Architects (Heritage Architects), Alan Woods (Engineers) and Artis Consulting Ltd. (Project Management and QS).  

Civil Engineering & Structural Engineers in Yorkshire & Lincolnshire (alanwood.co.uk)

Project and Cost Management Consultants North East England | Artis Consulting Ltd

Architect | Mosedale Gillatt Architects | Newcastle Upon Tyne (mgarchitects.info)

Chartered Landscape Architects – Newcastle Gateshead | Southern Green