Updated 7 November 2025
Friends of Chelsea Park
On a day in March 1925, Annie Frances Styring was addressing a meeting in the Victoria Hall in Sheffield. She said, “Excuse me one moment”. She sat down, then suddenly collapsed, and died. Annie Frances was the wife of the former Lord Mayor, Alderman Dr Robert Styring and they lived in Brincliffe Tower (now called Brincliffe Towers) with their four children – Constance, Allan, Cyril and Lillian. Robert was so distressed at the sudden loss of his wife that he made a decision to gift his house and grounds to the City of Sheffield. He set up the Annie Frances Memorial Foundation in order to maintain the grounds of Brincliffe Tower, which were opened as a public park in 1935. The park became known as Chelsea Park.
Chelsea Park is a popular part of our neighbourhood, attracting visitors from around Nether Edge as well as the wider community. It is maintained by Sheffield City Council (SCC), which is responsible for the upkeep and management of the grounds and borders of the park. They also repair and maintain the playground facilities within the park. The wild flower patch and the planted border next to Brincliffe Towers, both installed and managed by Nether Edge and Sharrow Sustainable Transformation (NESST), are part of a drive to widen the biodiversity within the park. The wild flower meadow behind the playground, when in full bloom, has pathways mown through the meadow to encourage careful exploration of the wildflowers and insects living there.
In September each year the very popular Party in the Park is organised as part of the Nether Edge Festival and is held in Chelsea Park.
Those of you who use the park regularly will have noticed the new benches which have been installed alongside the main path. The cost of purchase and installation of the benches was met through private donations by Pets at Rest and by the family of Paul Smith. The Community Payback team, requested by Andy Phillips from the SCC Parks and Countryside Service, have done an excellent job of cleaning up older benches around the park. As these older, existing benches become too worn to repair, we plan to replace them with the newer style benches made from recycled plastic.
The pathway leading from Brincliffe Towers down to the main park entrance on Chelsea Road has recently been resurfaced by SCC and a bollard installed at the top end of the path to prevent any unauthorised vehicular access to the park.
The children’s playground is maintained by SCC which meets the cost of any repairs to the play equipment. However any new developments to the play area are paid for through fund raising by Friends of Chelsea Park. The benches within the play area are in need of some repair and NENG has provided the funds for this. Further small improvements to the basketball area are needed, for example the basketball net and fencing could do with a good clean and the basketball court markings need to be repainted. We are hoping that at some point the Community Payback Scheme will be able to clean the fencing of the basketball area and that the SCC graffiti team will remove the graffiti from the covered seating area.
Chelsea Park is very popular with families, especially at the weekend and during school holidays, and with dog owners throughout the year and we are keen to improve the park environment for all park users. In time we would like to offer play equipment suitable for slightly older children and develop the area around where the old carved Chelsea Park owl originally sat.
If you are interested in helping us with planning and fundraising for these developments we would very much like to hear from you.
Please contact Friends of Chelsea Park by emailing
Sue Chantler on suechantler@gmail.com or
Helen Ryall on helenryall@yahoo.com