Finding Lost Norton Park: Digging Deeper for All
Project to further explore the history, heritage and archaeology of the historic Norton (now Graves) Park
Following the highly successful National Lottery Heritage Fund supported project “Finding Lost Norton Park” in 2019, the Friends of Graves Park were awarded a £142,770 grant, from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, to run the sequel “Digging Deeper for All”. We worked with Professor Ian Rotherham and South Yorkshire Biodiversity Research Group (SYBRG), focusing on Norton Park (now named Graves Park). We researched deeper into the history, heritage, ecology, archaeology and local memories of this historic park.
Running from January 2023 to July 2024, the project explored landscape, history and wildlife heritage supported by historians (archivists), landscape archaeologists and wildlife experts in gathering and assessing the information.
Although the Digging Deeper Project is now over, you might be interested in the following events this Autumn. The first one is a chance to revisit the results of the Project:
Graves Park & surrounding areas –
Graves Park & Local Area Action for Climate Change
South Yorkshire Biodiversity Research Group is organising a programme of indoor & outdoor events with funding from the J.G. Graves Charitable Trust and local sponsorship. All are free to join and suitable for beginners.
Walks and Talks Programme September and October 2025
The talks will take place at the Lees Hall Golf Club, Hemsworth Road on Monday evenings. They are free, all welcome to attend. The doors open at 6.30pm for a 7pm start and the evening finishes around 8.30pm.
Everyone is welcome.
The next monthly bird walk led by Karon Mayor is on Thursday 4th September, starting at 10am by the Rose Garden Café and finishing by 12noon. The following bird walk will be on 15th October. Each is a gentle stroll around the same route, looking for and listening to a variety of birds taking in some of the woodland and the ponds. Beginners are welcome.
The local history/ reminiscence group’s next meeting will be on Tuesday 9th September at the Norton Hotel,11am start. Our topics will be Painted Fabrics centenary events and Norton Hall. All are welcome to come along – I just need to know in advance for overall numbers.
As part of the Heritage Open Days festival, there will be another event to commemorate the centenary of the official opening for Painted Fabrics Ltd at Little Norton on Tuesday 16th September at Lees Hall Golf Club. There are two repeated sessions with talks and displays, starting at 1.30pm or 5.30pm. Booking is essential for this event and will open on Thursday 21st August to coincide with the launch of the Sheffield festival brochure. https://bookwhen.com/sybrg#focus=ev-sb6d-20250916133000
Indoor Evening Events Programme:
Our Evening Talks programme at Lees Hall Golf Club will begin on Monday 6th October with ‘The Feel-Good Factor: Nature, wellbeing and environmental behaviour’ by Caroline Cook and Helen Todd. This will be an engaging session exploring nature connection and its links to wellbeing and environmental behaviour. Starting with an introduction to forest bathing (the Japanese practice of Shinrin-Yoku) including a little taste of this through a short sensory activity using natural items gathered from local woodlands and finishing with plenty of discussion time to share thoughts on what this means for us and our community.
Helen, who is a certified forest bathing practitioner, will be running three sessions on Forest bathing (Shinrin-Yoku/ mindfulness in nature) in Graves Park. Each session will involve a series of sensory activities designed to help you slow down and engage fully with the woodland environment through all your senses. As well as personal benefits, forest bathing cultivates a sense of reciprocity– inspiring participants to give back to nature as well as receive from it, and sessions will include time to reflect on ways you can support local wildlife and help nature flourish. There will be a fee for these sessions which last about 1 ½ hrs and must be booked in advance. The first is on 3rd September, 6pm https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1565814295709?aff=oddtdtcreator , followed by 21st September at 10am https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1565865087629?aff=oddtdtcreator and 11th October, 1:30pm https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1569837609549?aff=oddtdtcreator
Information about our November events – indoor talks with Andy Alder (Small Projects in a Big World: a journey towards self-sufficiency) and Tim Cockrell (Rock Art and Sheffield’s Pre-history in the Upland Hinterlands) and outdoor walks on birds and fungi will be featured in our September newsletter.
Please continue to send in any wildlife records to my colleague Karon, karon.syeconet@gmail.com to add to our lists which will feed into our Eco-plan for the park.
For more details: syeconet@gmail.com or 0114 2724227
To Download Maps, Resources and More, Click Here!
History and Heritage
Woodland Heritage Surveys, Woodland Archaeology, Recording Heritage Trees and Tree Stories Walks and Workshop, Local History Reminiscences, Archaeology Walks, Digging Deeper into the Park’s History Workshop, Introduction to Place Names, Delving into the Archives, and Uncovering and Sharing Memories Events and Workshops.
Nature and Environment
Bat Watch, Introduction to Lichens Walk, Autumn Birds, Fungi and Slime Moulds, Woodland Heritage Surveys, Woodland Archaeology, Recording Heritage Trees and Tree Stories Walks and Workshop.
https://www.ukeconet.org/lostnortonpark_2.html
