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The Bramall Learning Centre & Library is a new £3 million eco-friendly centre, which will provide free horticultural education facilities for over 10,000 Yorkshire children every year. The Duchess will open the centre, meet education staff and children using the building and learn about the many green technologies which qualified it for the highest BREEAM* rating ever in its class in the UK.

Liz Thwaite, Head of Site at Harlow Carr said: "It is a great honour to have the Duchess officially open the new centre. We are looking forward to introducing her to some of the team who made this project possible, as well as showcasing the Learning Centre in action with local school children taking lessons in the building and its teaching garden. Staff members have worked extremely hard to deliver a flagship project of sustainability and education for the RHS, and we are delighted with all our recent awards, which will put both Harlow Carr and Harrogate on the map for sustainability and innovation".

In October the Garden received a White Rose Award for Sustainability, a Yorkshire and Humber Construction Best Practice Award, and has been short listed for a prestigious national Sustainability Award. This is on top of the news that the Garden also scooped the 2010 'Large Visitor Attraction' Tourism Award for Yorkshire.

Her Royal Highness is visiting RHS Garden Harlow Carr and the Mercer Art Gallery as part of a series of engagements in the Harrogate district.

* BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method), the leading and most widely used environmental assessment scheme for buildings.