Today’s walk wasn’t quite what I had in mind when I set off. I planned to visit a secret garden, but decided to walk to the Peace Gardens first where I lingered on a bench watching the world go by.

Whilst I was taking photos near to the Peace Gardens a gentleman noticed me and told me about the previous uses of some of the buildings nearby. I had no idea that one of them used to be the fire station or the local butchers shop. There is so much interesting history within the town of Wellington.

I arrived at my planned destination, the secret garden of Wellington station to find a red warning sign ‘Staff Only’. I was a little confused because there was a fence and a gate with the warning sign where previously there had been no barrier. The temptingly open gate to the secret garden was behind the barrier. The garden has recently been transformed from rustic to formal leaving me to wonder why access was denied.

When I got home I found that the opening of the garden has been delayed until October…

I had hoped to join Walking With Giants Wellington Town Tour that was part of last weekend’s Wellington festival but a family birthday gathering prevented me from doing so.

Today I went search of the booklet of the walking trail, firstly in Morrison’s then later I walked to Wellington, via the station to see if I could get a copy in Wellington Civic and Leisure Centre. I failed in my mission (I suspect the booklet hasn’t been printed yet), but enjoyed my afternoon ‘there and back again’ walk.

My next mission is to try and print the online PDF of the walking with giants heritage trail so that it comes out in booklet form. Then I will be able to walk the route (which takes in many familiar places too me), armed with additional information on the places I know and the places I have missed as I walk past them.

The Peace Gardens area was originally the churchyard of St Paul’s Church, which was built in the 18th century. The church was built to accommodate Sheffield’s increasing population, which had outgrown the capacity of the Parish Church (which is now the Anglican Cathedral).

A wealthy local goldsmith called Robert Downs paid for St Paul’s Church to be built and work started in 1720. However, Robert Downs later had a disagreement with the church authorities and for a short time he allowed dissenters to worship in the building. This was stopped when the church was finally consecrated or blessed in 1740.

By 1938 the Church of England had no further use for St Paul’s and it was demolished to make way for a proposed extension to the Town Hall. Unfortunately, due to the Second World War, the extension was never built and all that remained of the building were the churchyard walls.

We created a temporary garden with the remaining walls and named it St Paul’s Gardens. However the name soon changed to the Peace Gardens due to the popular desire for a return to peacetime. The name became formal in 1985.

The Goodwin Fountain has 89 individual jets of water and is dedicated to Sir Stuart and Lady Goodwin. Sir Stuart was the founder of an important Sheffield steel and tool making firm – Neepsend Ltd – and a man of considerable wealth.

Throughout their lives they donated a lot of money to a number of charities in the local area, especially hospitals. One of the donations was for the construction of a new fountain at the head of Fargate in 1961. The fountain was originally intended as a tribute to Alderman James Sterling, however, it became known as the Goodwin Fountain and was eventually dedicated to them.

In 1998, the old fountain at the top of Fargate was worn out and was replaced by the new fountain in the Peace Gardens.

The Holberry Cascades are 8 large water features that are dedicated to Samuel Holberry, who was the leader of the Sheffield Chartist Movement, and are located on either side of the 4 entrances to the main area of the Peace Gardens.

The waterfalls from the bronze vessels represent both the pouring of water into Sheffield’s 5 rivers, and the pouring of molten metal used in Sheffield’s metal industries.

57,000 litres of water are pumped through its water features. The system employs a water re-circulation system and is kept clean using a brine solution rather than chemicals.

I was subliminally aware as I drifted in and out of sleep that there was a lot of activity going on in the hotel rooms and corridors. After a while I found my glasses and a torch (the room was dark) and looked at my watch to see what time it was. It was 8.15, the alarm hadn’t gone off! We had a mad rush round, arriving only slightly later than intended for breakfast. For a change, I chose a blueberry and maple syrup pancake stack. When it arrived the pancake stack was enormous with an equal-and-opposite tiny portion of blueberry compote. It was delicious but there were too many pancakes and not enough compote.

After breakfast we checked out of the hotel and headed back to the Nuclear bunker to take photos of the exterior. We had forgotten to do this when we tried to visit and found it closed on our arrival in York.

We programmed the SatNav on a course for the Winter Gardens in Sheffield. The garden was not quite as described to me by Mr C and not what he expected. The gardens were lovely but brief. Whilst we were there we visited the adjoining Millenium Gallery, viewing the Ruskin collection and the Sykes Gallery metalwork collections. The latter was especially fascinating, showcasing the products of the industry that Sheffield is famous for.

We left the garden and gallery via the Peace Gardens and made our way to Sheffield Cathedral where we had lunch in the delightful 1554 coffee shop before visiting the Cathedral. There is something about the Cathedral that gave a special feel to it.

All too soon it was time for us to continue on our journey homeward. We stopped off on the way to pick up some items for dinner. It was a good job that we did, we arrived home to find that some of the electrics had tripped taking out the heating and the fridge/freezer. Mr C reset the switch, everything stayed stable and we were able to dine before the circuit tripped out a few more times before bed time. In addition to this, the house was unexpectedly cold!

PS: I explained what happened next in my blog post ‘The Wanderer Returns’:

http://www.cheriesplace.me.uk/blog/index.php/2020/02/05/the-wanderer-returns-9/

A couple of days after the electrician and engineer visited, the house was still cold. I decided to check the thermostat which I had reset to 21 (where the dial needs to be for our house to be warm) after the engineer had told me had set it to 20 after setting it to full on to do his tests. On checking the thermostat I found that it was now set at 18, no wonder the house was cold!