The Gardener's Story

The earliest reference to the Calderstones dates back to 1568 when they were the focal point of a boundary dispute between the Manors of Wavertree and Allerton.  In the context of written history the stones then appear to be of venerable age, but placed against the greater timescale of geological time, 1568 is not even yesterday.  Even more significant, is that the stones remained in place for millennia, through winters and summers of frost and snow and sun and rain, untouched by inquisitive animals and immune from the roots of plants, sheltering whatever was sacred to its builders.  A son of William Roscoe was inspired to write verses about the stones but Eden Philpotts's lines in "The Circle" capture the essence of their antiquity;

"These stones have seen the red-eyed wolf-pack throng
To slay the fleeting elk upon the waste
And they have marked the cave bears clumsy haste
Shuffling great golden furze and ragged rocks among".

But sometime in the mid 1700's, a mere 250 years ago, the stones placed so carefully and reverently were disturbed and the long slumber of their residents abruptly ended ----for the most trivial of reasons.

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The cups and rings carved into the stones have fascinated antiquarians ever since their discovery but for many years the mysterious hieroglyphics were attributed to the Druids and the presence of the nearby Druids Cross made it seem a reasonable assumption.  However, this was before the Victorian era when Charles Darwin and his contemporaries sparked a scientific renaissance which inspired the Victorians to delve into every nook and cranny and take nothing at face value.  The coming together of the new theories of evolution and geology inspired a new look at the stones but by the time the Victorians approached, armed to the teeth with artillery provided courtesy of Darwin, Agassiz, Cuvier, Mantell, Owen et al, the archaeological integrity of the site had been severely compromised and the stones scattered everywhere.

If the Victorians had arrived earlier then they would have found an absolutely pristine example of a Neolithic dolmen or  burial mound but after circa 5,000 years of undisturbed serenity, the mound was broken into in 1765 for the sand that lay within.  The incursion into the Calderstones was a result of the encroachment of fresh building works which were modest at the time but the precursor of the building which was to come.  With the sand that was removed were clay urns containing bones and ashes.

Woolton Lodge was constructed in 1805 on the site of the original Druids Cross and once more the temptation to use the sand was too good to resist and further damage resulted.

In 1845, a workman building the lodge opposite the stones, was chatting to a William Spencer, a farmer, who informed the builder that he had taken away cartloads of soil from the site in previous years.

Studley Martin told a tale of playing with the funerary urns which were stored in what was then Mercer's farmhouse 
{ now Beechley } and how his favourite game, along with his friends, was to stand the urns in a row and throw stones until they were scattered into fragments.

But the final clue as to the origin of the stones came from a 90 year old gardener named John Peers who told his employer, E W. Cox that he recalled the stones as a young boy { circa 1812 } when it was a very tall mound on which local youths would sunbathe and it still retained a reasonable semblance of its original condition.  He also recalled that the mound was destroyed when the country lane was subject to a road widening scheme { circa 1830 } and the whole thing was levelled and the stones scattered about.  John Peers told his employer that before the stones were scattered, they had the appearance of a "little hut" with urns within.  The workmen placed the stones in a circle so that they could continue with their work.

The local farmers were not slow to remove many of the exposed stones for use as "rubbing stones" for cattle --- Mr Booker was one of these and the suspicion is that the "Robin Hood Stone" is one of the Calderstones.  The final indignity was that John Peers was instructed to take the remaining ashes and bones and scatter them as fertilizer.

It's from such evidence that the Victorian scientists were able to piece together the fact that the mound was once a Neolithic burial site { tumulus } similar to dolmens found all over Europe.  Possibly it was the grave of a chieftain or otherwise a family grave but whatever it was, the sages must have wept tears of frustration at the destruction of the archaeological treasure in their midst ---  five thousand years destroyed in less than a century.

William Roscoe frequently  passed by the site and took an interest but it was Joseph Need Walker who recognized that the stones had some significance and he placed them in a standing position within a circle enclosed by iron railings .  In the centre he planted
 a conifer.  In 1869, Sir James Picton remarked that the stones were covered in ivy and there they remained until the 1970's until Liverpool Corporation saw fit to remove them for safekeeping into an annexe of Harthill greenhouses which is where they are today, 
safe from the vagaries of wind and weather --------although it was never the weather that was the problem.

Through a glass darkly

We can only ever glimpse through the opaque windows of our imaginations at how Calderstones and Allerton must have looked in past times.  The absence of photographs and the paucity of paintings leaves only old maps with which to picture something of how life was for our ancestors --- the adage "one picture is worth a thousand words" is never more apt.  Nevertheless, the old maps do show a landscape which is unremittingly devoid of any major building works and reveals vast expanses of a countryside which must have been teeming with a flora and fauna largely absent in today's world.  The maps show a land of ancient "manors" where Lords of the Manor lived in huge mansions at the centre of their estates which were dotted with cottages here and there for their workers who lived in a kind of benevolent feudalism, recognisable even up to the middle of the 1800's and beyond.  Far from being the peaceful, rural idyll where everyone knew their place in the world, the whole era from the 12th century onwards is a seething turmoil of marriages of convenience, power struggles, jealousies and violence, far too complex to enter into here.  Woolton, Allerton, Garston, Childwall and Gateacre all remained rural domains until the mid 1800's simply because businessmen wanted to live close to their work which was almost always near the docks.  Commuting was out of the question on roads which were little less than soil pathways and turned into muddy pot-holes at every rainfall.  The Woolton, Allerton and Childwall of today may be regarded as bastions of rural suburbia famed for their leafy environments but the fact is that what we are looking at are the remnants of once-great forests and farmlands, clinging on in the face of an unremitting urban sprawl.  It is at one and the same time, both laudable and laughable that the Black Woods, one of a few lingering woodlands, should be contained by a fence ----is it to keep the trees in or as a bulwark against further building?

The thanes who managed the King's land and whose names are long-forgotten would have taken little notice of the mound of grass in the wilderness and the Lathoms, Grelleys and Percevals were more interested in their dynastic squabbles.  The only interest they may have taken would have been if the mound interfered with their farming activities.  The Percevals had been a distinguished family for generations and it was Richard Perceval who had sold the manor of Allerton in 1736 and regretted it for the rest of his life ----the story goes that he lived as a recluse for the rest of his days.  The buyers were the avaricious Hardman family who immediately took up residence in Allerton Hall and looked out upon a vast domain which would have included what is now Harthill, Calderstones and Beechley but for the fact that these large portions of land had been already purchased just a few years earlier by Samuel Mercer in 1728.  At that time, the only buildings on the horizon were what was called "The Old House" where the Mansion House now stands and another nondescript  building nearby.  

Samuel Mercer started a dynasty of his own when his two sons, Joseph and Jonathan, inherited the land on their father's death in 1753.  Joseph bought Jonathan's share of their inheritance and on his death in 1804, the estates passed into the keeping of his son, also called Joseph.  This Joseph, the grandson of the original purchaser of the property, subsequently sold in 1814, portions of the estate to James Martin {  whose son, Studley, took such childish delight in destroying the antique funerary urns }.  With the estate becoming fragmented, the estate agent's version of pass-the-parcel finally ended in 1828, when the whole of the estate ended up in the hands of a man who had the foresight to see the potential of this prime land and it was this owner who sowed the seeds of what was to become Calderstones Park.



A Man of Property

Joseph Need Walker, the proud new owner of the estates,  would never have known the true age or meaning of the stones that lay strewn around his land but he did have the sagacity to realise that they were of some significance in the great scheme of things and one of the first tasks that he set himself was to gather the stones into a circle and enclose them within a sandstone wall.  Emphasising the importance that Need Walker attached to the stones, he then placed a cast-iron railing around the site with the key in the keeping of the resident of the nearby lodge.  He then planted a conifer as a centre-piece to his design and there it all remained for the next 160 years.  The chiselled commemoration of the event remains in the wall today, half-buried by fresh tarmac.

Need Walker's immediate concern after the conservation of the stones was to build a house worthy of his holdings and he demolished the "Old House" and work began on the Mansion House, circa 1830  ----he named the house and estates "Calderstones" after the antique stones he valued so much .  As time went on Need Walker made further purchases which incorporated land on Yew Tree road, Beechley and Harthill into his estate and by so doing, he unwittingly performed a public service of inestimable value by bringing together what would eventually be Calderstones Park as it is today.  When Need Walker bought Yew Tree road it was closed off at both ends and only the residents were allowed entry

 
The Lottie Sleigh Incident.

One year before Need Walkers death, on the evening of the 16th January, 1864, families on both sides of the river were shocked by an explosion so violent that it shattered windows for over a mile on each bank.  On the Birkenhead side, the sky rained wooden splinters and iron bolts and on the Liverpool side, Calderstones was among many houses whose windows were shattered.  

The cause of all the excitement was a ship anchored at Woodside ferry awaiting the morning tide to begin her voyage to Africa ------the Lottie Sleigh.  It seems that an overturned oil-lamp had begun a fire which was soon out of control and with 11 tons of gunpowder in the hold the crew were not slow in abandoning ship.  The fire had begun at 6 pm and on the return of the crew to shore, a crowd gathered to watch the greatest show of fireworks ever seen in the city when the Lottie Sleigh disintegrated at 7.30 pm.

The Allerton Oak was also struck by flying debris from the doomed ship and several limbs were shattered and subsequently removed.

Need Walker enjoyed his purchases for over 35 years until his death in 1865 when the estate again changed hands and was left to Need Walker's son who lacked his father's love of the place and sold it on in 1873 to a businessman named Charles MacIver for the sum of £52,000.

The last of the Line

 Charles MacIver was to be the last Lord of the Manor of an estate boasting a  long and distinguished line of Lancashire aristocracy stretching back to the 12th century.  One by one, the great estates of Liverpool were passing out of the hands of private ownership and the final years of Calderstones as a private estate coincided fittingly with the latter years of the reign of Queen Victoria and was purchased in the year of her death.

 It was Charles MacIver's brother David who had begun the family success story in maritime commerce when he formed the City of Glasgow Steampacket Co. in 1831, round about the same time that Need Walker was taking over Calderstones.  The Steampacket Company' s first venture was a mail and passenger service between Glasgow and Liverpool and the first ship was fittingly, The City of Glasgow.  Four years later, David brought his brother "on board", so to speak, and together they began what was to be a successful and lucrative partnership.  In 1837, they launched the steamer Commodore, at the time, the largest and fastest vessel afloat and in 1840, the brothers had grown in confidence enough to form the ambitious Mail Steamship Service between Liverpool and North America.    Their North American agent, looking after their affairs on the other side of the Atlantic was a young man named Samuel Cunard.



The association of the MacIver brothers with Samuel Cunard were the beginnings of the illustrious Cunard Line with the steamer the Unicorn, launching in 1840 and in the same year, the Britannia joining the burgeoning fleet.  The journey across the Atlantic averaged 12 days and Charles Dickens was one of the first customers.  Having set the family on its way in business, David MacIver died in 1845, leaving Charles to continue alone until his death 40 years later, in 1885.

In 1851. Charles lived in 43 Canning St, typically for a shipping agent, just  a stone's throw from his offices on the waterfront.  In 1862, he moved to the prestigious and brand new no. 8 Abercromby Square where one of  his neighbours across the square was Charles Kuhn Prioleau, an American agent purchasing ships for the Confederacy, although MacIver would never have known.  As time went by and his business flourished even more, Charles began to take an interest in the larger estates in the rural outskirts of Liverpool and he purchased Dovecot House in Knotty Ash before finally acquiring Calderstones.
Charles had connections with the island of Malta and a large house he bought at the junction of Allerton Rd and Booker Avenue was called Verdala Tower, a name of Maltese origin { Charles Sr died in Malta ----his remains were brought back to Liverpool }.  His son Charles Jr lived in the house and father and son communicated by one of the very first phone lines installed in the city.

Calderstones Park cannot strictly be given the prestigious title of Victorian Park as it was 1902 to 1904 before the Park finally came into the keeping of Liverpool Corporation as it was then called but it has all the hallmarks of a Victorian Park and is in the spirit of what the Victorian's tried to achieve.  
On the death of Charles MacIver, his sons sold the house and estate to the City for £43,000 and after just two decades the MacIver family severed all ties with Calderstones.  

From the seed that Joseph Need Walker had sown when he purchased the land in 1828, an embryonic Calderstones Park emerged and when the MacIver's relinquished the estate, Liverpool Corporation began the work of turning it into the fine Park it is today.

In the manner of all the great Victorian estates, the Mansion House had been the heart of a thriving agricultural empire with the single purpose of maintaining the family in the best of everything.  Although it was never overtly harsh, there's no doubt that it was the last hurrah of a feudal system which had lasted for centuries and there was a very definite distinction between master and worker.  A gardener who worked in Calderstones up to  the 1960's told of life in private service as "rising pre-dawn to polish the master's boots and read him the Bible before beginning the day's work which lasted until the sun went down".  Others came from generations of whole families which devoted their lives to a particular family, serving as gardeners, cooks, cleaners, butkers and gardeners.  They were all far more skilled than given credit for and even in recent years the Gardeners Chronicle has advertisements for live-in gardeners and housekeepers and some still have the temerity to stipulate "no children" ----the usual wording is " wife to help in the house".  Old habits die hard.

A Corporate Policy

Liverpool Corporation came in for some severe criticism for spending what was then an enormous amount of public money in purchasing the Calderstones estate but over the years the £43,000 expenditure has proven to be one of the most astute business deals the Corporation ever made.  The land that they inherited could never be described as a park in the early years ---- it was in fact nothing less than a perfect example of a working estate of the landed gentry. 

 To the Corporation's great credit, they never demolished any of the original features at all but followed instead a policy of subtly adapting the existing features to accommodate the public on whose behalf the place had been purchased.  The policy was slow and continues to this day but the results have been a masterclass in adapting a working environment into a colourful parkland while retaining all the original Victorian features which are so much a feature of Calderstone's infra-structure.  The Linda McCartney play area stands out as a modernistic design but has not interfered with any Victorian architecture.  It has also been a roaring success and in retrospect should have been at least twice the size.


The ubiquitous "walled garden" was always a feature of any self-respecting Victorian estate and Calderstones was no exception with the enclosed area a sheltered growing place for a multitude of food crops --- a kitchen garden.  The surrounding walls were  typical of Victorian ingenuity being hollow with grates at intervals where fires were lit so that the smoke circulating around the walls kept the frost out allowing tender fruits such as peaches and grapes to be grown.  More exotic fruits were grown in the adjacent greenhouses, along with plants and flowers for the house decorations.  All manner of devices were used to keep the people of the great estates in luxury and Calderstones employed most of them including heated greenhouses powered by coal-fired boilers, wooden frames surrounded by compost to generate an incredible heat, the walled garden ------- the one thing that has not been found is an ice-house but there was once a well { now filled in } beneath the house.  This agricultural powerhouse became redundant when the Corporation took over and the walled garden was converted into a delightful Old English Garden, retaining all the antique features but growing plants for a different client ---- a client that demanded colour and perfume which is exactly what the garden supplies in abundance.  The greenhouses still retain but are now walk-through havens of exotics and orchids ---- the purely functional is now purely aesthetic.

There were two greenhouse areas and in the 1960's the one nearest the house was set aside for the creation of a Japanese Garden, the inspiration of  Parks Superintendent, Mr Harry Buckley whose creative skills were legend at the time.  Sadly, the Japanese Garden is one of a very few of Mr. Buckley's works remaining ----- much of his work was designing gardens for the various Shows such as Chelsea that Liverpool City Council then took part in and having been displayed were subsequently dismantled.  Those Show Gardens were masterpieces in their own right but were ephemeral creations retained only in photographs if anyone thought to take them, unlike the Japanese which garden has matured into a fine example of the genre and is an example of how the decaying areas of the old estate are being adapted into modern usage.

During Need Walker's tenure it seems that many varieties of trees were planted and Charles MacIver continued the practice.  The results of their energy and foresight can be seen today in the multitude of unusual and now mature stands of trees which are a feature of the park.  The finest tree of all of them pre-dates any known plantings and is reputed to be over one thousand years old ----the Allerton Oak is certainly a venerable member of the genus but is unlikely to have reached such an age just yet.  However, the base of the tree was reputed to have been a shady open-air courtroom in medieval times and was severely shocked by the Lottie Sleigh explosion { even trees have feelings } and is the last remaining reminder of the woodland that once existed here.  Given that the waterfront was filled with ship-building firms hungry for fine timber right up until the 1870's the greatest wonder of the Allerton Oak is that it has survived the axe and stands supreme in Calderstones surrounded by throngs of admirers ----although it does need the arboreal equivalent of a zimmer frame.  Always regarded with affection, the acorns from the great  Oak were collected during the war and seedlings preserved in case the tree suffered bomb damage. 

If there is any one feature of Calderstones which testifies to its agricultural past it is the ha-ha fence dating back from Need Walker's tenure.  In common with most Victorian inventions, the ha-ha combines simplicity and ingenuity in retaining the panoramic view from the windows of the Mansion House while effectively keeping the cattle and horses where they belong.

From the tentative steps of altering the estate assets to accommodate the public in the early days of their acquisition, the Park Management suddenly altered course in the 1930's, and throwing caution to the winds, began work on a major engineering scheme which would alter the landscape forever.  In the days before mechanical diggers, the construction of a park lake was not to be undertaken lightly but their boldness paid off when the lake not only enhanced the park from an aesthetic point of view but has sustained a variance of  birds and wildlife ever since.

The Second World War saw the Mansion House requisitioned as a military headquarters and Calderstones unearthed its very own war hero in the guise of Jet, a black alsatian dog.  Jet's full title was Jet of Lada and he was owned by Mrs Babcock-Cleaver of Mossley Hill who was a regular park user.  During the blitz, Jet's job was to search through the rubble of bombed buildings and seek out survivors ---- a job at which he excelled greatly, saving over 50 people throughout the war years.  Jet was demobbed in 1945 and became one of the first recipients of the Dickin Medal which is universally recognized as the "animal V.C" .  The Dickin Medal came into being in 1943 on the recommendation of Maria Dickin and only 62 medals have been awarded up to the present day.
Jet's days of rescue work weren't finished even after the war years and he was sent to a pit disaster at Whitehaven in 1946 where he saved many miners from an early grave ----- Jet's fearless rescue efforts cost him dear when the effects of the gases affected him badly for the remainder of his life.  He died at the early age of 7 years.  Jet is immortalized in a granite memorial within the flower garden, unveiled by Mrs Babcock-Cleaver, which reads "He belongs to mankind".

By the 1950's, Calderstones' metamorphosis into a park had been completed and the policy of retaining the Victorian features turned out to be a complete success.  The public valued the park highly but there was a certain cachet by the gardening fraternity in working at Calderstones and the varied garden features were an excellent training ground.  Many of the gardeners at that time had returned from the war { bringing with them an Italian P.O.W. who worked in the gardens and married a Liverpool girl ---always with his distinctive cap } and there were even one or two who had served in the First World War.  


They were an easy bunch to manage as discipline had been instilled into all of them from an early age and they were the last in a long line of gardeners from "private service" where their skills were second to none and their working hours were long and hard.  Several among them had been born in the latter years of the 1800's and their fathers would no doubt have been acquainted with the Boer War and the Crimean War.  One by one, the old gardeners retired until there were none of that generation left by the 1960's and their passing was the last link with an "upstairs, downstairs" way of life they knew so well and is so beloved of writers of the Victorian era.

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Harthill

In 1825, at just about the time when Need Walker was thinking about rearranging the Calder-stones, Stanley Percival and his wife built a grand house on the nearby estate of Harthill which was still a part of their shrinking empire.  Stanley Percival was the scion of a long dynasty of Lords of the Manor of Allerton and a close relation of Spencer Perceval who retained the dubious distinction of being the only English Prime Minister ever to be assassinated.  It did the city's reputation no good when his killer, John Bellingham was found to be a Liverpool resident in the prestigious no. 46 Duke Street.

Stanley Percival resided in Harthill until 1848 when he sold the house to John Bibby, a wealthy man whose business was in iron and steel.  Bibby's wife, Fanny, was the daughter of the brilliant engineer, Jesse Hartley whose work on the Liverpool dock system is his everlasting memorial.  Hartley lived near to his work in Bootle and was presented with a granite column in his honour which he duly erected near to his home.  It's not recorded what Hartley thought of the honour that had been bestowed upon him but it was hardly an inspirational piece of sculpture ----in fact, it wasn't a sculpture at all, simply a large chunk of granite without lettering, plaque or anything else to denote its recipient.  But, there must have been some significance attached to the granite stele because when Bibby bought Harthill,  he brought the granite column with him and installed it in his gardens.   The column stood there for many years until it was moved in the 1960's adjacent to the new Harthill greenhouse complex and has since been moved again nearer to Calderstones again.  The granite stele today stands prominently in the middle of a path and in keeping with its distinct lack of information, has no sign or signature to tell the passer-by of its history ---- in all of the long history of sculpture, Hartley's Obelisk must be the least distinctive and most secretive of stones ever bestowed.

Fanny died in 1856 at the early age of 46 and Bibby later married again.  He died in 1883 and his widow followed him, dying in the final year of the 19th century in 1899.  The days of the Lord of the manor were quietly passing into history and the deferential treatment accorded the likes of the Percivals and others like them was passing with them.  The 20th century ushered in a new era and the house built by John Bibby was occupied by Mr Bishop, a local J.P.  When he vacated the property, Harthill was bought by Liverpool Corporation in 1913, and the house was taken over by F. Division of Liverpool City Police, as a temporary headquarters and by the 1930's following the departure of the police, the house began to fall into decay.

It was a sad irony and a complete coincidence that at just the same time as Bibby's mansion was falling into dereliction, one of the finest ornamental entrances anywhere was being erected at the entrance to Harthill on the corner of Harthill and Calderstones roads.  The building of William Brown's Shipping Company built in 1863  stood in Water St.  For some unknown reason, the prestigious building was due to be demolished in 1928 after only 60 years of existence and the demolition firm chosen was William Thornton ltd.  The name of the demolition company is significant because the Brown building could have easily gone the way of many buildings in Liverpool in which works of art are destroyed or vanish from the face of the earth and Browns themselves seemed to attach little value to the set of sculptures which occupied the building which is strange given that Sir William Brown was the benefactor of the Museum and William Brown Street was named after him.  It was fortunate that an unsung hero among the Thornton management recognized quality when he saw it, although he may not have known they were the work of Edwin Stirling, and after some consultation, the figures were erected on their present site.  The Four Seasons and the two "Titans" are a striking and understated  adornment to Calderstones and although they got there by a roundabout route, their positioning is perfect for the subject matter.  Even though the gates are off the beaten track, they have been vandalised several times for reasons which nobody could ever ascertain ---- fortunately, they have been successfully restored and stand as the entrance to a house which no longer exists.

The Harthill house was finally demolished in the late 30's and it wasn't until the 1960's that another acquisition the park was begun.  From the time that  the bomb which fell through Botanic Park conservatory during the May blitz, William Roscoe's historic and acclaimed plant collection had been homeless and scattered throughout the city ----- the building of a new set of greenhouses would in effect take the place of the lost conservatory and among other things, house the Roscoe collection and the site chosen was where John Bibby's old house had stood. It seemed strange that the house had decayed and the stables remained solid but that was the situation and they were subsequently used a garage and storage headquarters.  With the erection of the greenhouse complex, William Roscoe's peripatetic plants seemed safe for the foreseeable future and particular value was attached to the orchid collection from around the world which was looked after by an Australian girl who was an orchid specialist ------ her name was Sheila, which meant little in England but was a comic tautology in her homeland.  

Although the general public regarded Calderstones and Harthill as a single entity, the staff never did and there was a fierce rivalry between all members of staff ---- it was said that greenhouse staff everywhere regarded themselves as finer gardeners and more skilled than outside staff and the mechanics regarded themselves as a breed apart,  while the Calderstones staff looked upon themselves as an elite force.  As a result of this internecine bickering, the artisans within the garages crafted { ensuring that they worked in their spare time of course } a silver cup which was to be kept for a year by the winner of the annual football match.  There were more staff in Calderstones so the garage and the greenhouse staff for that one day, formed an uneasy truce to oppose the Calderstones Wanderers. The match was fought out in typically bad humour with a great deal of cheating and fouling which went unnoticed by the ref. because there was none and usually the garage and greenhouse combination won the day simply because they couldn't bear to be parted from their "Silver"Cup which was a highly prized artifact.  There were several broken legs and some other related knocks and bruises but there was little sympathy for the invalids as they had some time off work and still got paid for it.

Unfortunately, Harthill greenhouses were not destined for a long life and in the 1980's they joined a long litany of public buildings sanctioned for demolition by Liverpool City Council for no reason that anyone could discern as sensible.  The greenhouses, which were not old by any means, were the victims of the instability stalking the corridors of power in that era and became a focal point of a political impasse in which it was perceived that the only solution was demolition.  The Great Greenhouse Wars seemed ludicrous at the time but judged in the harsh spotlight of historical perspective they now seem worthy of inclusion into a revised version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.  But no matter which way you looked at it, Roscoe's collection of plants which were now all of 200 years old, were once again homeless in a city which appeared to despise matters horticultural ----or so it seemed to an amazed onlooking outside world.

But overall, in 2008, Calderstones Park is looking good ---- visitors can still see the artifacts which were in place at various times in the parks existence along with the later ornamental features and in 2000 the park received the ultimate accolade of a visit from Liverpool royalty when Paul McCartney opened the Linda MCartney children's playground.  Perhaps he recalled his own childhood when he played in the park and perhaps he recalled the time when John Lennon was toying with the lyrics of a new song ----Calderstones Park Forever ? It does seem likely right now.