gardens were once again coming under siege. The city had
tropical plants with shards, shredding the soft leaves of the
caught up with them again, just as it had at Mount Pleasant.
bananas and the ferns, exposing the tropical orchids to a cold
Smoke was drifting over the high walls from the nearby
northern night. The next day it was clear that many plants
housing and the building of a gas works and a marshalling
were lost, but those still standing were quickly dispatched
yard close by seemed the final ignominy. The wealth of the
into the hundreds of glasshouses round the
city was ebbing away – all those private orchid collections
city; ironically, to those abandoned by the former homes
in mansions around the parks were being broken up to
of the wealthy orchid enthusiasts, the one time heirs of
pay death duties. One of these was the estate of Holbrook
Mr Roscoe’s first garden.
Gaskell, which, along with his fine orchids, passed into the hands of the Corporation. During the Great Depression of 1929, 30% of Liverpool
The orchids were removed to Sudley, the former home of the Holts, one of Liverpool’s leading Unitarian families, whose forebears were amongst the first Proprietors of the gardens.
was living below the poverty line, with 14% only just above
Only the palms, the giraffes of the plant world, remained
it. Who cared about a botanic garden? The railings that once
at Wavertree in the one tall house still standing. There they
framed the glasshouse were severed from their stumps for
stayed in splendid isolation until the sixties, tended by a
melting down. Then came the Second World War, the pools
gardener named Mark Hughes who regularly dispatched
in the garden were filled in for fear that their reflections
the smaller specimens round the city to furnish the foyers
would help the navigation of night flying enemy aircraft.
and functions of civic life. The echo of this tradition lives on;
For want of better lodgings, a group of young soldiers were
Liverpool is one of the only Councils with an in-house floral
billeted in the Curator’s Lodge which had now all but fallen
decoration service.
into disrepair. One winter night they were short of wood
There was another, smaller casualty of the war; Mr Roscoe’s
to build a fire. They were freezing cold, and a stack
personal copy of his great Monandrian Plants, the very book
of abandoned old ledgers, browning and dry, that one
that he had asked his daughter to fetch down from the shelf of
of them found in a corner must have seemed a good
his study at Lodge Lane to show a young German artist. This
alternative. So they burnt them. In a mirroring of the fate
copy, having inexplicably found its way into the bookshop of
of so many of the badly kept herbarium specimens at the
Henry Young and Sons of South Castle Street, was destroyed
turn of the century, the young men unintentionally burnt all
during an air-raid.
the Botanic Gardens’s records kept since the beginnings
Then there was the garden’s Herbarium. Though now
at Mount Pleasant. They burnt the careful annotations of
housed in the splendour of the Museum it was arguably at
the Shepherds, of Birschell, of Richardson, the biography
most risk right in the city centre. It was saved by a mix of
of the garden, its diary; plants gifted, plants dispatched;
foresight and luck. After the bombing of Bristol Museum, a
plants coming into flower; plants dying away, wages paid to
Government edict had been issued for all Curators of major
gardeners, their names, works carried out, monies paid. Of
provincial museums to remove collections to safety. Mr
course these young men cannot be blamed. The story of the
Stansfield, the then Curator of Natural History, had to pack
burning of the botanic records is from an oral source – John
up in haste. Short of time and space he chose to take what
Edmondson’s parents had friends who saw what happened,
he believed to be most intrinsically valuable. He chose the
or the aftermath of it. He remembers these friends visiting
Herbarium. This garden of fourteen thousand desiccated
his parents years ago before he worked in Liverpool and
blooms; each a distant memory of a far off place and time was
telling the story, but sadly he cannot remember who they
taken to a secret location in Wales and silently lived out the
were or how they came to be witnesses to such a poignant
war several miles underground in a mine shaft. The collection
event. He only wishes that he did.
of insects that Stansfield had to leave behind did not survive.
16 What should have been the death knell of the gardens
They, like Mr Roscoe’s book, were destroyed in the May bombing campaign that devastated Liverpool to its core. Mr Stansfield’s love of Liverpool’s botanic history was
happened on the night of November 29th 1940. Britain
later sealed in the articles he wrote in the 1950s about Mr
was at war and the Luftwaffe were circling in the skies over
Roscoe as a botanist, still to this day, incredibly, the only
Wavertree. They had the adjacent marshalling yard and
published, academic works on the subject. His papers were
gasworks in their sights and dispatched their load. A stray
made possible by the gift of Mr Roscoe’s letters to the city by
bomb missed and fell in the park. The impact shattered the
his relative Mrs A.M. Roscoe who was touched by the way he
dome of the Botanic Gardens glasshouse, showering the
had been remembered at the centenary of his death in 1931.
Hundreds of these letters are on botanical subjects. They
into oblivion and the wealthy had all but fled. Although
are now housed in the City Archives though only accessible
I’m sure from what I’ve been told that the glasshouse at
to personal readers. Due to lack of resources none have
Wavertree could have been repaired, Conn abandoned it
been computer catalogued.
to the palms. He earmarked the outdoor gardens there
17
for a road safety scheme, where children could be taught traffic drill. Though it was never built, his design still exists
It would be entirely understandable at this point if
in the city archives, the mock roads whimsically following
Liverpool’s living botanic story (the photosynthesising,
the graceful curves of the scroll-beds. Sometimes I have
sap rising one) had ended here. It could all so easily
wondered whether secretly Mr Conn was glad to leave
have faded to the delicate browns and greys of the dried,
behind the great glass hulk there; half broken monument to
institutionalised life enjoyed by the garden’s former library
a now redundant Empire. Citing the problems of smoke and
and herbaria. That the living botanical collections prevailed
encroaching housing, as Shepherd had done when moving
post-war is due, I think, to the vision of one man. His name
the first garden, Conn rebuilt his new botanic garden from
was Percival William Henry Conn A.H.R.H.S, P.P.Inst.
scratch, further out of the city on the Harthill Estate, in
P.A, L.I.L.A and he was an ‘Old Kew-ite’ from the south
Calderstones Park which the Corporation had bought from
who had spent much of his career in Coventry Municipal
the Bibby family, whose descendants had also been original
Parks. Mr Conn or ‘Sir’ as he was known by most (even
Proprietors of the first garden. The Botanic Gardens and
to senior management) was the grey eminence behind
plant collections were on the move again.
Liverpool’s post war botanic renaissance. Sam Youd,
It took over thirteen years for Mr Conn to build his new
now Head of Gardens at Tatton Park and an apprentice
botanic garden. In the intervening years he built up the
in Liverpool Parks in the early sixties described Mr Conn
collection, both indoor and outdoor. He kept it in people’s
as a formidable figure. He said that even in the height of
minds with what seem to me, inspired moves; he literally
summer Sir sported a long black cloak that made him look
wowed ‘em with media friendly plants. In 1953, the city
like the figure in the Sandeman sherry ads. With a cheroot
was celebrating the coronation of their new young queen;
permanently hanging form the corner of his mouth and a
it was also the bi-centenary of Mr Roscoe’s birth. Perhaps to
strong southern accent he was also pretty unintelligible to
mark both occasions Mr Conn and the Garden Committee
his local workforce.
subscribed to one of the very last plant hunting expeditions
Mr Conn lived in a tied house ‘The Bridge House’ on
made by the legendary Frank Kingdon Ward. Ward was off to
Ibbotson’s Lane in Sefton Park, the proximity to the nursery
Burma, on what would in time prove to be one of the last visits
of which struck terror in the hearts of the apprentice
there by a Western botanist before the country descended into
gardeners who worked there, including Steve Perkins, a
the lock-down of what is a now a brutal military regime. Ward
former Deputy Director of Parks, who also remembers him
was renowned for finding new rhododendron species; maybe
well. Conn had a housekeeper and a chauffeur driven car
the thought of these gracing the outdoor collection of his
at his ready disposal. An acre and a half vegetable garden
new botanic gardens were in Mr Conn’s mind? We may never
tended by three brave full-time gardeners provided produce
know, but because of the city’s patronage Ward and his young
for his table and a separate cutting garden meant vases of
wife Jean set sail from Liverpool that November on the M.V
flowers were always a feature in his home. Fresh fruit was his
Staffordshire, a ship of the Bibby line – Port Said, Port Sudan,
for the eating all year round; half a Council greenhouse was
Aden, Colombo, final destination Rangoon. The Kingdon-
dedicated to growing peaches, grapes and the like for his
Wards sent back rhododendrons, Sorbus, new orchids and a
entertaining. Following in the fashion of earlier Directors of
new lily, Lilium arboricola, the world’s first known tree-dwelling
Parks, Mr Guttridge included, he seems to have taken on the
(epiphytic) lily. The ‘Burmese Lily’ as it became known caused
mantle of Liverpool’s Botanic Curator. He certainly directed
a sensation and flowered in only two places in England – in
its future.
Liverpool and at RHS Wisley, before being lost to cultivation.
I’ve often heard people talk about the genius of John
The lily became a myth; it has been described to me as the
Shepherd, the very first Curator of the Botanic Gardens,
Holy Grail for lily lovers; it has never been seen since and the
but Shepherd’s was a garden upon whom good fortune
only image I have found of it is of the Liverpool flower – its pale
shone; he built it up at a time when money was flooding
head haloed with darkness, as if emerging from a long night.
into the city. 130 odd years later Percy Conn built his new version when Liverpool was on its knees, almost bombed
The Burmese Lily grabbed the headlines and captured people’s hearts; and for a moment Liverpool was