Sheffield Food Festival

Over the bank holiday weekend we've been hard at work down in Sheffield City Centre as part of the Food Festival.

It rained like crazy on Saturday and Sunday but that didn't dampen our Blitz spirit! The Green Estate Team were out in force with our 1940's wartime garden and kitchen, with Tony from the Rhubarb Shed providing the mobile canteen. Big Lad was there meeting & greeting as well as lots of other wartime goodness!

We were all decked out in 1940's style ready for our week of 1940's fun and games THIS WEEK for half term up at the discovery centre! If you picked up a ration book from our stall at the weekend, bring it up this week to get 1 weeks worth of sweetie rations for FREE!

The Discovery Centre is open from 10:30 - 2:30 Tuesday to Friday this week, (later on Saturday) with lots of wartime games and activities, children £3 adults free.

Hands on our Heritage Conference at the Community History Research Room!

A big thank you to all our attendees who came to the launch of the Community History Research Room on Saturday 10^th May here at Manor Lodge. We held a conference around the question ‘Is Sheffield’s Heritage in Crisis?’ and, as you can imagine, we had a variety of ideas around the subject!

After hearing presentations from John Hamshere from the Cultural Consortium and Sheffield Industrial Museums Trust, Richard Motley from Integreat Plus, Sam Smith from the South Yorkshire Through Time Project and Brian Holmshaw from the Regather cooperative, we had a roundtable discussion on the issue. While the recession and austerity have created increasingly difficult conditions for heritage groups and sites in Sheffield, there is still a lot of grassroots support for community history projects, which go to make up the thriving civic and social landscape of the city. 

A full set of notes on the roundtable discussion will be made available soon, elaborating on these issues (once I’ve finished writing them up!) and there is the possibility that there will be more meetings based around creating a vision for steering the future of heritage planning in Sheffield.

About the Community History Research Room.

The CHRR has a reference library of local history books and helpful how-to guides to help any individuals or local heritage researchers with their work. Sarah, the Access to History officer, will be on site on Saturdays for face-to-face advice on all things heritage. Saturday is also family day at the Community Heritage Research Room, with an exciting activity to take part in each week, which will use the objects, pictures and maps in our collections. Handle objects people used to have in their homes and shops, see what Sheffield looked like in the past and how it has changed, and learn about creating your own archive of memories!

Check the Manor Lodge events page for details of when the CHRR will be open to the public on Saturdays.

Sheffield Food Festival is nearly here

Once again this year we'll be taking part in Sheffield Food Festival. Last year was such a huge success and we're hoping that this year will be even better!

Sheffield Hallam Students have made this short film about us in the run up to the Festival...




We hope to see lots of you there at the Food Festival on the 24th & 25th May, we'll be outside the Town Hall!

Manor Oaks Nursery: opening soon

This morning we're busy sending out our press release for our brand new nursery which opens it's doors for the first time on the 3rd May (a week on Saturday)!

Marvellous Meadows – Get the Look here in Sheffield

By popular demand Green Estate is adding another attraction  to its Manor Lodge Site . From the 3^rd May and every Saturday until the end of August, a fantastic new specialist plant sale will operate just to the back of the Rhubarb Shed café.

The new venture is called Manor Oaks Nursery and the plants are all species that can be found in Sheffield’s very own  ‘Pictorial Meadows’ especially the  fantastic new long flowering perennial schemes jus becoming available. You may have seen these spectacular meadows at the Olympic Park or even driving through Rotherham  last year .

Along with a programme of new meadow tours this year we’re encouraging all plant enthusiasts and garden lovers to come, have a good rummage, chat to the nursery staff and gardeners and buy lots of lovely plants.

All proceeds go to support us keeping Sheffield Lodge Site  open to the public.

Further information Contact L.Noriega-Waite@greenestate.org

What's going on at Sheffield Manor Lodge!

Lian has been doing some seeding at the moment for pictorial meadow seeds and pictorial meadow trials for the tours later on this year in July. She has also started constructing the area for manor oaks nursery which opens on the 3^rd May.

Our volunteer Carole has been busy all winter making stock plants look nice in the shade tunnel.

Due to the nice weather the bees are doing well and buzzing about the place! Lian and Ethel were working with National trust doing some log extraction in Grindleford, in the Peak District. It was a very successful day with lots of members of the public.

Our site mascot, Big Lad, has been very busy this week. You might have seen him on the road pulling Ethel along in the cart up at Manor Fields.

Tony has been hard at work in the café. Pie night has been booking up  very quickly, the word has spread fast about the quality of food our young apprentices can produce! The Sunday openings have now begun too, opening at 10 and taking last orders at 3.

Alistair has been putting in some Flower beds down at the cottages and some trial pots have been put in at Manor fields.

The ducks have arrived and we have already had our first escapee! The mischievous duck was found in the lower field by Adrian. The duck the proceeded to follow Adrian back up to the farm but luckily decided not to follow him home afterwards!

Our Easter egg hunt preparation has begun! The Easter egg hunt will be taking place on Saturday 19^th April from around 10.30-3.30pm down at Manor Oaks farm. There will also be some craft activities put on and some prizes to be won along with tombola, donkey rides, pin the tail on the bunny and many more easter themed activities! We hope you are as egg-cited as we are!

And finally…Pack your bags bees! The bees are also on the move, moving from their current house at the cottages to Big Lad’s old shed. Work has begun on constructing the new home which will hopefully be the bees’ knees before their move in a month or so!

This February Half Term

We've got some fun craft sessions coming up for kids aged 4 years +
Come along and get creative, places must be booked and paid for in advance, £3 per child, adults free!

Christmas on the farm 2013

On Saturday 14th December we hosted an eclectic festive event at Manor Oaks Farm! With Santa & his elf, Mary, Joseph & baby Jesus, some technicolor Reindeer and our Donkeys Lilly & Rosie all in attendance.
Hundreds of local people came along to shop at our festive craft stalls make Christmas lanterns & pomanders, visit Santa, enjoy our Christmas cocktail bar, play on the tombola & raffle and enjoy the carols by candlelight performance by the children of All Saints Catholic High School, here's a few snaps of our fabulous annual event...

(photos courtesy of Sheffield Photographer Diamonds & Doodles)