The Friends of Rowntree Park always have a number of projects on the go! These range from gardening and wildlife developments, educational sessions and a range of community events and activities.

On Going Project – Gardening overview

The Friends of Rowntree Park are responsible for the maintenance of certain parts of the park’s gardens. York Council are responsible for the rest. The FRP look after:
– The Long Borders
– The two railed gardens – known as the Friends Garden and Rosemary’s Sensory Garden
-The Rose Memorial Garden/Pergola area near the footprint maze
– Pollinator Project – started 2020. This is the area at the Terry Avenue gates. Read more below.
–Wildlife area – started in 2021

We also built and care for the Forest School area (story circle). We have a volunteer who cares for the rockery under the cafe, too. We also started propagate our own plants in the Lodge Garden, the area behind the cafe over the last couple of years.

You can read more about gardening areas and our plans/aims here.

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Current Projects -Older girls and Rowntree Park

In 2022 we started our project on making Rowntree Park more welcoming to teenage girls. Research shows that as girls enter their teenage years, their use of parks drops compared to boys. Therefore they are missing out on the physical and mental health benefits spending time in parks can bring. Therefore our project aims to address this and help create a welcoming and inclusive park. We have:
-carried out a range of engagement
– A new area in the park that opened in May 2024 with equipment teenage girls asked for – and we fundraised for.
– Make Space Festival started in 2023 and runs in June each year so far. It even won the ‘Best Initiative to increase park use by women and girls’ by Green Flag ‘Best of the Best Awards‘ 2023-24.
If you’d like to read more about our project, you can do so here.

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Current Project – Rowntree Park Pollinator Project.

One of our big project from 2024 onwards is our Pollinators Project. Our volunteer gardeners have been planting to help biodiversity for the last few years but this year we are really focusing on sharing the work we’ve been doing and highlighting what pollinators we have in the park and their importance. Through the year there will be things such as:
-An art based pollinator trail
-Pollinator themed craft and forest school based events and activities
-Planting and seed sowing sessions area
and more!

We’d love you to get involved whether attending an activity or volunteering to run some events (or help at).

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Current Project – Art in the Park

We have been running ‘Art in the Park’ annually since 2020 with a different theme each year inviting artists to submit pieces for an outdoor exhibition. Expressions of interest for ‘Art in the Park’ 2025 are currently being sought, with the deadline for entries 14th June. More info here.

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Ongoing project – Wildlife Area

In late 2020, we achieved a grant to start a project to create our wildlife area at the back of Butcher Terrace Field and improve the beck area. Plans include the following and some parts are underway but there is more to be done!

• New wildlife pond and turning current pond into a bog garden.
• improving the walkways and bridges around the beck
• Improving habitats for wildlife in the beck area and wild area
• A Forest School shelter/educational area
• Wildflower areas
• Improving and caring for our orchard and adding more fruit trees.
• Benches, paths and ID signs

We have weekend volunteer sessions spring to autumn. Register on our volunteer sign up form to be kept up to date when they are and come if you can!

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On going project -Park Lodge Plans

As you may (or may not) be aware, the Park Keeper’s Lodge above the cafe has been vacant since Summer 2017 when the park keeper was made redundant due to council budget cuts. The council’s plans for a holiday flat were rejected following opposition, and we have been working on a proposal for a community-based hub since that time.

It took longer than we’d hoped, for a variety of good reasons, but we made a business proposal to the council which was accepted in March 2021 based on some terms. We achieved planning permission in 2024 (finally) BUT currently we seek funding after the funding we’d been working towards was pulled in May 2024! There is still work going on behind the scenes with regard to sorting the terms of the lease with the City of York Council solicitors and looking for around £600k funding!

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On going Projects – few more…

Wild Ones: Nature ‘hang out’ for teen girls – Our weekly sessions for girls 10-16 have run since 2022 and have proved popular. we secured funding to continue to run these until 2026 thanks to the Police Fire and Crime commissioner Fund.

Biodiversity studies – UoY students carry out projects on biodiversity in the park to try and track changes. Looking at things such as bats, wildflowers, soil and more!

Green Social Prescribing – we are in a pilot programme for Yorkshire and at times have people signposted to us whose mental and physical health would benefit for getting involved with what we do. NHS practitioners/links chat with individuals and share opportunities like those we offer.

School workshops – schools book into our workshops that are linked to the curriculum including mini beasts, plants and more! We have welcomed local schools such as Knavesmire and Scarcroft, as well as some from further away. More information on workshops is here.

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Ongoing Projects:

Tree Trails – get the leaflets from the cafe ( to be redone Autumn 2025)

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Previous Projects

Our project ‘Unravelling the evolving nature of Rowntree Park’ was our project that was part of York Trailblazers, a city wide project focused on uncovering lesser known heritage stories of Yorks past. 

Trailblazers was led by Make it York and York Civic Trust, with funding from the Lottery Heritage Grant. Trailblazers was to inspire residents to discover and celebrate the heritage stories of people who are important to local communities. Our Rowntree Park project focused on uncovering the stories of ‘people of the park’ and examine the changing use/look of park over the years.
The project included: History walks & talks, community workshops, history boards and also the creation of a tansy beetle sculpture as part of the city wide trail.

Past projects include:

Adding picnic benches to the railed gardens 2023 & 24
Craft projects – Rowntree Park Rainbows and Bees & Butterflies (2020 & 2021)
Rewilding the woods 2019-20
Basketball Court – net nets and signs 2019
Labyrinth 2020