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The Botanic
Gardens
Wavertree Park
William
Roscoe { 1743 - 1831 }
William Roscoe pre-dated th
e
Victorian era
by a mere 6 years ---- Roscoe died in 1831 and Victoria ascended the throne in
1837. Roscoe's era was one of Wolfe's conquest of Quebec, The American
Revolution, The French Revolution, Napoleon and Waterloo. Nevertheless, he
had all of the finest qualities of the Victorians and not one of the bad ones
and it was luminaries such as he that the Victorians looked to for their
inspiration and it was Roscoe and others like him who shaped the Victorian
psyche.
There are so many facets to the life
of Roscoe that it is difficult to believe that anyone could cram so much
living into one lifetime. His achievements in the fields of horticulture
and botany alone are so considerable that it is also difficult to believe that
they were just one element in the life of this multi-talented individual.
But, even more incredible is that in the roll-call of Roscoe's many talents he
was superlative at each and every one of them. He was a Reformer, Poet,
Historian, Artist, Author, Banker, Member of Parliament, Philanthropist,
Botanist and devoted husband and father all rolled into one.
His poetry
lives on in stanzas he wrote for his son Robert, several of his paintings are on
show in the Walker Art Gallery, his biography of Pope Leo X { written while
living in Allerton Hall, Clarke Gardens} is still in print and he was Member of
Parliament for Liverpool. It was as M.P. for Liverpool that he also
displayed an iron determination and a fine integrity to go with his love of the
fine arts when standing shoulder to shoulder alongside Wilberforce in his fight
against slavery. It is not generally recognized that the background to the
abolition of slavery was one of fierce opposition by the merchants and
ship-owners and even less palatable is the fact that there was rioting and
protests when the legislation was going through Parliament. Some of the
worst rioting took place in Liverpool when the slavers realised that their
lucrative trade was about to end and it took a great deal of courage to stand
against them while acting as their member of Parliament.
Roscoe lived in the era of the great explorers and his interest in Botany was
fired by seamen such as Captain Cook who brought back plants which had never
been seen before from places previously undiscovered. Pre-emp
ting the
Victorian passion for plant collecting, Roscoe's collection grew so large that
he found it necessary to look around for somewhere to house his many
plants. He was not unique in his pastime ---- even across the channel, The
Empress Josephine was stocking her gardens at Malmaison with plants from French
explorers such as Lapeyrouse and Bougainville charged with bringing them back for her. It was of course, a
passion which only the very rich could indulge themselves but nevertheless it
gradually brought previously unknown species into the sphere of the common man
and anyone today who collects and grows plants will identify with Roscoe's
passion. Roscoe's first Botanic gardens were situated a short distance
away from where he was born { at the top of Mount Pleasant } in what is now
Crown Street and what was then a pleasant and rural setting. He created
the gardens in 1807 and all that remains today are the street names which recall his
endeavour ----Vine St, Mulberry St, Grove St, Olive St, Myrtle St and so on.
A measure of the speed at which the city was expanding is that in 1807 when the
original Botanic gardens were laid out, it was in an area of rural beauty on the outskirts of the
town and a mere 23 years later it was so polluted as to be unsuitable for
growing healthy plants. In nearby Abercromby Square which was designated
as the latest prestigious area for the well-heeled, houses were being built from
1820 onwards and just a few years later most of the residents were complaining
of pollution { which they contributed to } from the prodigious quantities of
smoke billowing out of the chimney-pots. Similar to the finest Victorian
Squares in Dublin and London, Abercromby residents demanded a garden as the
focal point of their neighbourhood and it was William Roscoe who provided the
answer; John Shepherd was the curator of Roscoe's original Botanic gardens and he
was instrumental in planning Abercromby gardens with their central, domed
gazebo, surrounded by cast-iron railings which the local residents only could
access by means of their key provided for the sum of one guinea per annum.
John Shepherd also designed the Liverpool Necropolis which is now a public park
called Grant Gardens. His final work was in the new Botanic Gardens at
Wavertree Park where he lived and worked in the lodge on the corner of Edge Lane
and Botanic road until his death in 1836 at the age of 72.
Although he was in his twilight years, 
Roscoe applied his prodigious energy to
seeking out a new home for his beloved collection and with the aid of an
interested 26 year old William Gladstone he chose a derelict site away from the city where the air
was clean and the surroundings were pleasant. The new Botanic gardens were
to be within the grounds of the erstwhile Wavertree Hall which was at the time
the very epicentre of an isolated stronghold of prestigious houses and mansions
built upon the proceeds of the maritime exploits of the previous century which
included of course a large part in the Slave Trade. If the irony of the
siting of his new gardens ever struck him, Roscoe never said so.
Wavertree
hall had been called Plumbe Hall when it was built in 1719 as the home of the
Plumbe family and had subsequently been home to two Lord Mayors but when Roscoe
took it over the place was derelict and the grounds were unkempt and grown
wild. There must have been dancing in the streets when Roscoe
arrived as the City Council, in their infinite wisdom, were
negotiating to make the site into a prison. As things turned out, Roscoe's
timely intervention was the beginning of the halcyon days of the Botanic gardens
and the surrounding area and for over a century the area thrived in the halcyon
days of the Victorian era.
Among
all his other attributes Roscoe was above all a pragmatist and in lines from one
of his poems he is disturbingly prophetic;
"The
time may come -- o distant be the year
When desolation spreads her Empire here
When
trades uncertain triumph shall be o'er
And the wave roll neglected on the shore
And not one trace of former pride remain."
The New Botanic Gardens
In 1830, Roscoe's prize plant collection was moved into a grand complex of
hot-houses and Conservatories within a walled garden. Over a period of
time, the garden was landscaped into a kaleidoscope of gardening subjects to
please the eye and satisfy even the most avid hortic
ulturalist ; the winding
paths hid each section of the garden so that the promenader "came
upon" subjects suddenly and surprisingly, including within a comparatively
small area; ponds, fountains, shrubberies, herbaceous borders, rose gardens,
rockeries and of course the entrance to the great Conservatory which was flanked
by two stone statues, one of a seated Souter Johnny and the other of a
seated Tam O'Shanter next to a row of Roman urns. The statues are
now badly decayed and vandalised beyond repair.
For most people, the
most colourful parts of the garden were the sections devoted to the elaborate
and complex bedding schemes.
The gardens came in time to contain what came to be known as Victorian Bedding
Schemes and Botanic had within its confines undoubtedly the finest
examples of the genre. There were no less than half -a-dozen areas
devoted to the subject and they each carried great swathes of vari-coloured
plants which never failed to delight the eye whichever combination was
planted. Victorian Bedding Schemes started out as a luxurious indulgence
to which only the very rich could aspire, consisting of glorious combinations of
species and colours. The richness of the displays was only limited by the
imagination of the gardener but in most cases the Head Gardener was inspired by
the colours and textures available to him and invariably produced magnificent
combinations of flowers. The bedding schemes were a glorious kaleidoscope
of living colour and defied anything that the painter's palette could
produce. The variety of plants available grew more each year in tandem
with the skills of the early hybridisers and the number of new species which
were constantly arriving from overseas but a standard display might have
included ; pelargoniums, heliotrope, dahlias, marigolds, lobelia, petunias,
alyssum, aster, begonias, ageratum, fuchsias and so on. The number
of plants required to plant out Botanic was in the region of 30,000 and if a
spring display of wallflowers and tulips and polyanthus was planted then the
figure was doubled.
The plant displays became even more exuberant and colourful when the
ever-inventive gardeners experimented with plants 
from warmer climes and
discovered that although they would never survive an English winter most of them
would certainly stand out in the summer and the innovative Tropical Bedding
schemes began. Often the gardener would mix the exotic species with the
normal bedding plants and sometimes he would use tropical plants alone but
whichever they chose the displays were always extravagant and glorious.
Plants which were considered exotic and rare were Canna lilies, Ricinus, Cleome,
Lantana, Chlorophytum, several varieties of Palm, Iresine, Leucophytum and many
others. Many of the varieties of plants in common usage at the time
are lost today or if they exist at all are in the hands of collectors ----Pelargoniums
in particular are an outstanding example of varieties sacrificed for the sake of
consistency. Present day Pelargoniums are hybrids bred to look all the
same size and all the same colour but in Victorian times the skill of the
planting required that different sized plants were chosen with large in the
centre, medium in the middle and small to the outside of a flower bed and lost
varieties include such beauties as Vesuvius, Mauretania, Happy Thoughts, Mrs Cox
and so many others.
The Victorian gardeners became ever more innovative as time went by and carpet
bedding became fashionable. This was a true test of the gardener's skill
and imagination requiring detailed scaled drawings of a colourful logo and as
many varieties as possible of low-growing plants which were amenable to close
clipping. Plants in use were sedum, pyrethrum, crassula, sempervivum,
iresine and so on. The technique became even more refined when the craze
for the carpet bedding to be used in conjunction with a cuckoo clock was
inspired by the singularly complex clock in Princes Gardens, Edinburgh which can
still be seen there today in all its glory. The clockmakers, James Ritchie
and Sons of Edinburgh had devised a clock with huge hands controlled by a system
of weights and pulleys below ground which piped "cuckoo" on the
hour. Ritchie's business extended a great deal when cities in England
wanted the same for their gardens and the work even extended to private gardens
where scaled down versions could be provided. The device became simpler in
the 60's when the weights and pulleys were replaced by an electric motor no
bigger than a loaf of bread.
Victorian bedding schemes were still in vogue well into the 1970's and
successive generations of gardeners taught their skills to apprentices who
elaborated on the displays according to the plants at their disposal.
Sadly, the Golden Age of bedding schemes on the grand scale has declined and is
now a rarity ---- the expenses that the Victorian aristocracy bore with
veritable ease have been intolerable for town councils all over the country,
culminating in the grassing-over of beds throughout the land. English
gardeners were once famed throughout the world and the skills that were so
hard-earned in Victorian gardens down the years, have now been superceded by
multi-national companies, churning out cloned plants from futuristic factories
devoted to the art of exactitude. There's something a little disturbing
about serried rows of plants, each one the twin of its neighbour, with any
displaying the slightest difference weeded out and destroyed.
The Victorian Gardener
From the above
description, it can be seen that just the flower displays alone were a massively
complex part of the gardener's work-load but what has not been mentioned is that
apart from seed exchanged from a network of other Botanics around the globe the
gardens were entirely self sufficient. What the public did not see was how
many plants were propagated in the autumn and others lifted to be looked after
throughout each winter in the greenhouses in readiness for next years
displays. If anything happened to the plants during the winter then the
consequences for the following years were catastrophic. The weight of
responsibility upon the Head Gardener's shoulders was onerous and many of them
lived on site ---the lodge at Botanic/ Edge Lane still stands but the lodge at
Wavertree road has been demolished. During a hard winter, the 
gardener's
skills were tested to the limit and the whole collection of tropical plants,
bedding plants and exotics was totally dependent on two cast-iron boilers,
standing side by side and said to be "married".
And just like
married couples anywhere, the two boilers were occasionally cranky, required a
great deal of attention and very often broke down. The boilers needed a
constant supply of coke or anthracite and the evenings were especially
fraught. The winters were colder than they are now and frosty evenings
meant that the gardener on duty would stoke his boilers at 5 p.m. and return at
10 p.m. to stoke up again and set the dampers, ensuring that the fires burned
down but not too soon before dawn or the morning frosts could do immense damage
within an hour or so. In such cases, the gardener employed several tricks
to ensure the plants survival, including spraying with cold water and covering
over with newspaper.
The annual renovation of the boilers was carried out
scrupulously ---winter was a worrying time. The depressing sight of badly
frosted plants has sent many a Head gardener into a deep depression and his
whole career and reputation hinged upon the idiosyncrasies of a pair of erratic
and cantankerous, cast-iron refugees from Stevenson's Rocket.
On private estates, the life of a Head Gardener was even harder as not only did
he have the responsibilities detailed above, he also would almost certainly have
had a kitchen garden and a greenhouse devoted to producing fruit, flowers and
vegetables all year round. The life of the Victorian Head gardener carried
a massive responsibility and required an encyclopaedic knowledge of plants and
their care and to further add to the burden it was surprisingly
competitive. The Gardeners Chronicle was the Bible for every gardener
throughout the land and most of them were seeking to improve their lot despite
the worries they engendered. Pay was poor and reputations could be lost
with one piece of bad luck or misjudgement but there was one major advantage in
that most advertisements for the grand country estates included a cottage and
food and work inside the "big-house" for the gardener's wife was
obligatory. There
were never any 
shortage of applicants -- in fact whenever a post became vacant
there was always a flood of applicants and the estates had the pick of the
best. For a family man work was hard and life could be a worry but the
advantages outweighed the disadvantages with no shortage of food on the table
and a home provided.
Throughout the following years, the boundaries of the gardens spread beyond the
perimeter of the Botanic walls and out into the area called Wavertree
Park. The park was landscaped into a number of meandering paths where
trees and shrubberies planted throughout the grass areas made the walk a
pleasant
and colourful experience. On the Wavertree road side of the park were
several ponds and a miniature lake with an island in the centre.
The main path opened out at its centre into a circle and at its centre was a
unique, ornamental fountain of bronze with a flock of Liver Birds hovering over
and around the water-basin. At ground level there was a small basin
allowing dogs a place to drink.
After 1855, two Russian Trophies as they were called at the time were placed at
the Wavertree road entrance. They were massive cannon from the Crimean war
( Sebastopol ) and a bold and unashamed statement of Victorian hubris which nobody thought
incongruous or strange in any way and the whole area was a small nod to Imperial
glory which had the official seal put upon it with the Great Exhibition of 1886
and the visit of the Empress herself.
The Twilight Years
Surrounded on all sides by clusters of grand houses and the occasional mansion
the park was the centre-piece of an upper-class stronghold throughout the
Victorian era and beyond. For well over a century life was idyllic in the
splendid suburb that was Liverpool 7 and the clusters of rail-workers cottages
with their long, narrow front gardens burgeoning along Spekeland road were only
perceived to be a quaint addition to the area.
The residents of the grand houses were probably unaware that the population
explosion from the city centre would ever affect their way of life and for a
long time encroachment was so gradual as to be imperceptible ---the gas-works
built in 1854, a symbol of engineering advancement, the reservoir built in the
same year was architecturally impressive and the rail-system was a technical marvel.
But by 1885, the dam had well and truly burst in the city centre and the slow
incoming tide of new houses had turned into a veritable flood which surrounded
and eventually engulfed the park and its environs. Row after row of cheap
back-to-back houses sprang up ensuring the countryside was eroded and suburbia
besieged. The days of crinolined ladies and bewhiskered gents were coming
to an end but for the time being it was a slow process and even throughout the
20's and 30's the park retained its regal appearance like some refined old lady
in the twilight of her years.
The ad
dition of yet another encroachment to
the park was the appearance of the art-deco Littlewooods building in the 30's
which was welcomed at least by the kestrels and sparrowhawks who immediately
took up residence in the nooks and crannies beside the clock.
The war years were the pivotal era for the life of the park and the great
houses. The mansions and the park were inextricably entwined and for years
they had lived with one dependent on the other and it was that symbiotic
relationship which caused both of them to fade into dereliction together.
The houses were three stories high with a cellar and all of them had grown old
with their original owners who were now dead or dying. They all needed
renovation and repairs to bring them into the 20th century but times had
changed, money was scarce, the area was no longer prestigious and most of the
houses stood empty for years on the demise of their owners, deteriorating even
faster.
The Russian Trophies had been melted down in the war effort
depleting the park even further but the bomb that crashed through the great
Conservatory sent a shock wave throughout the whole area which still resonates
to this day and from that point onward the decline was inexorable.
The End of an Era
The war years had not only changed the landscape but had signalled a sea-change
in people's attitudes. Priorities altered drastically and aesthetics were
of little use in a bleak and battered moonscape of ration-books, bewilderment and
austerity. Most people were too busy trying to keep body and soul together
to spare a
ny thought for the park and its once-posh houses and the heretofore
slow decline began hurtling alarmingly into a headlong crash. There
was no money about to repair the mansions even if buyers could be found and the
once proud homes of Liverpool's elite were rented as apartments with the
occasional empty property here and there. The infrastructure of the park
and the Botanic gardens had depreciated with the passage of time but something
which had never been a factor before began to appear ---the spectre of
vandalism. The problem with vandalism is that if it is not seen to be
dealt with by the authorities then it becomes cumulative and as parks were seen
to be low priority by an overworked police force then the vandals came to
realize that they had a free-hand to wreck whatever they liked with
impunity. The flock of Liver Birds on the central fountain suffered
greatly and today there is little more than the base standing and employing a
smattering of botanical knowledge trees were mindlessly stripped of their bark
in the knowledge that they would die slowly. The statues were smashed and
anything of value systematically looted including flower beds. There began
to appear whole new rafts of legislature concerning Health and Safety which led
to all the ponds and the lake being filled in as they were considered a danger
to children ----- quite why they had never been a danger in the previous 130
years was a question nobody asked and nobody could answer.
There was a brief renaissance in the 80's when an energetic attempt was made to
rekindle the glories of the past and for several years the Victorian bedding was
faithfully replicated, a laburnum arch was planted and there was even a cuckoo
clock and carpet bedding. The relatively few people who saw it were
immensely impressed and had an inkling of just how the park used to be but sadly
it was a theatrical production without an audience and only served to reinforce
the hard fact that the gardens were now in the wrong place at the wrong
time. Most of the hundreds of footballers and their supporters who used
the park regularly had no idea that there was a classic flower disp
lay within
the walled gardens and would
never have cared anyway and the idea fell away for
lack of recognition. The expense could never have been justified by the
sprinkling of visitors to the gardens who were interested in plants anyway and
the gardens returned to their moribund state.
After over a century of affluence and genteel suburbia the change in the
fortunes of the park and the surrounding area after the war was nothing less
than spectacular and it takes a great stretch of the imagination
to comprehend how it used to be. It also brings to mind the paradox that
in an age when wages were a pittance, hours were unbelievably long and
implements of work were primitive, the
average working man took inordinate pride in the quality of his work as
evidenced by the glories of Botanic Park.
The original design of the park is still in place and is quite capable of being
revitalized and even though time has diminished the infrastructure of gates and
walls they too are not yet irredeemable but it is not the fabric of the park
which is in question and not even the will to revive the park ; rather more in
question is the concept of a Botanic garden having any value in this place and
at this time. There is no evidence to support the theory that the majority
this area and at this time would value a Botanic Gardens in their midst
and until there is a fundamental change in that situation then Botanic Gardens
will remain in a cryonic slumber amidst the ruins of its former glory.
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history during the Victorian era :
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