Work starts on new Visitor Welcome building

The Garden is situated in one of the fastest developing areas of Cambridge, with many new offices and facilities opening up on Station Road and Hills Road, within a 10 minute walk from the Garden.

The current Station Road entrance is based around a small shed and designed to service what was a secondary entrance point to the Garden. As the popularity of the Garden has grown, and the population of the neighbourhood increases, the Station Road entrance has become the “main” entry point for over half of our annual 350,000+ visitors. This has created a need to develop the entrance to make sure that most of our visitors enter through an entrance that is both fit for purpose and meets their expectations.

The new entrance will include toilets, which are currently absent from that end of the Garden (and a useful facility for those arriving by train), including a Changing Places toilet. New landscaping will highlight the Garden’s collection and plant conservation work. We have worked to ensure the development will be designed to fit into the landscape, while drawing people into the Garden.

The new entrance will include a shop which will be ideally placed for local communities and those working close to the Garden to purchase small gifts etc., and they will benefit from knowing that they are supporting the wider work of the Garden with every purchase. Those using the shop will not have to pay for entrance to the Garden.

A temporary ticket office and entrance are being installed to allow the building work to take place and continued visitor access to the Garden from this end of the site. However the Station Road cycle park is now closed for the duration of the build (the Brookside cycle park remains open as usual).

It is hoped that the new building will open in the autumn of 2025. We can’t wait to be able to welcome our visitors in style!