Five curious landmarks, ranging from the biggest greenhouse in Barnsley to a corroding veteran submarine on the Solent have had their futures secured with an £11m lottery grant.

A Welsh pier, a London music hall and the transporter bridge across the Tees at Middlesbrough also take a share of the money, plus initial support for four projects still working on detailed restoration plans.

The package from the Heritage Lottery Fund marks another step in the quango’s skill at avoiding the charges of geographical favouritism rife in the mid-1990s. Growing mastery of the grant system in the regions is helping to disperse money which initially seemed to favour long-planned and well-developed applications from London and other “obvious” heritage centres.

The biggest of the new grants go to Gosport, Middlesbrough and Barnsley which get the lion’s share totalling £8.4m – hefty money for relatively small local economies. Carol Souter, chief executive of the HLF, said that each had come up with a project more than worthy of national attention.

Barnsley’s restoration of the winter gardens at Wentworth Castle, which receives £2.4m will complete the revival of one of the most startling landmarks alongside the M1 in an area often misconceived-of as grimy and industrial. Surrounded by miles of park, forestry and farmland, including a venison-producing deer herd by the motorway, the mansion is home to the UK’s finest collections of rhododendrons.

Plants collected by the Victorian Fitzwilliam family, who also owned the even bigger mansion of Wentworth Woodhouse five miles away, were returned to China a decade ago to replace species lost in dam-building and rural development.

Souter said the project had clearly secured the affection of local people, with a thriving volunteer group and 200 panes of new glass for the greenhouse already sponsored by local people and organisations.

London’s share of the money is more modest this time, with £207,400 development funding for Hoxton music hall for work on a proposed £2m restoration. The Victorian building is the only saloon-style music hall to survive in the UK.

The other confirmed grants go to HMS Alliance at Gosport, a 1945-7 submarine which gets £3.4m, Middlesbrough’s bridge which gets £2.6m, Penarth pier and pavilion which gets £1.68m and Wakefield cathedral, which turned aside some church concerns about lottery money as an ethical source to receive £1.58m. The cathedral hosts arts, community and civic events as well as regular worship and its grant continues a good run for the city, which has just opened two shopping centres and the £35 million Hepworth gallery.

Smaller development grants go to historic stables at Newmarket, a pottery in Stoke-on-Trent and 10 areas of ancient woodland across the UK.