Boston Flora

Tag: Joseph Paxton

  • Tuesday, September 26, 5:00 am – 6:30 am Eastern (but recorded) – Birkenhead Park, Online

    The Gardens Trust has created a seven part series on Tuesdays, beginning September 12, to mark 50 years of UNESCO World Heritage, £5 each or all 7 for £28. Starting with an overview of World Heritage values and the changing nature of the UK list, the series will aim to enthuse people about individual sites around Great Britain, highlighting what makes each one exceptional, the advantages and challenges of being inscribed on the list, and the issues around sustainable future management of these global assets. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and again a few hours before the talk. A link to the recorded session (available for 1 week) will be sent shortly afterwards. Register for the complete series HERE, or follow the links on that page to sign up for individual sessions.

    Week Three features Marie le Devehat and Rob Belcher speaking on Birkenhead Park. Birkenhead Park is widely acknowledged to be the earliest purpose-built and publicly funded urban public park in the UK. Designed in 1844 by Joseph Paxton, it was laid out in the picturesque manner, in response to the rapid growth of the urban population. The way its landscape was designed stirs the emotions and provides a feeling of countryside in an urban conurbation. Today, Birkenhead Park’s undulating parkland still provides a green oasis for everyone to enjoy. In April 2023, “Birkenhead the People’s Park” was officially included on the UK’s Tentative List as a potential future nomination for the UNESCO World Heritage List. It has exceptional value as an innovative and influential model for local authority funded urban parks and has continued to serve the social purpose for which it was created.

    Marie Le Devehat is the World Heritage Project Officer for Birkenhead Park. Since joining Wirral Council in November 2019, she has been working on the application to UNESCO for the Park. Before she embarked on this journey, Marie has held various roles with a focus on World Heritage sites, heritage management, and has personal research interests in ‘heritage & memory’ studies.

    Rob Belcher is currently supporting Wirral Council’s ambitions for Birkenhead Park. His background is in town planning and landscape design. For the majority of Rob’s 35-year career he has worked in the sphere of public parks management and development, finding himself increasingly focused on the restoration and improvement of historic landscapes. Prior to starting work at Birkenhead Park in 2018, Rob was fortunate to lead the comprehensive restoration of Burslem and Hanley Parks in Stoke-on-Trent.

  • Thursday, May 19, 5:00 am – The Nineteenth Century Garden: Joseph Paxton, Online

    This Gardens Trust talk on May 19 is the third in the Gardens Trust’s 2nd series on Victorian Gardens on Thursdays @ 10.00 GMT. £5 each or all 6 for £30. Attendees will be sent a Zoom link 2 days prior to the start of the talk, and again a few hours before the talk. A link to the recorded session (available for 1 week) will be sent shortly afterwards. Register through Eventbrite HERE

    Sir Joseph Paxton (1803-1865) is remembered for designing large-scale public works, including parks, cemeteries and buildings, most notably the Crystal Palace. These sites were intended to be used and enjoyed by everybody, but Paxton’s inspiration came from the more exclusive environment of the country house. Among his achievements at Chatsworth, where he was employed as head gardener to the 6th Duke of Devonshire, he created one of the tallest water fountains in the world, brought the Victoria Regia (Amazonica) water lily to flower, and built an enormous glasshouse called the Great Stove. These Chatsworth projects were not only horticultural, engineering or aesthetic endeavours. Paxton was also driven by a belief in the moralising influence of gardens and gardening. With the agreement of his employer and the support of his wife Sarah, he opened Chatsworth’s gates to tens of thousands of tourists every year. As his success increased, so did his reach – the Crystal Palace and its gardens were visited by millions. This talk will draw on correspondence from the Devonshire Collections archive to shed light on how Joseph Paxton understood the social impact of his work, as it grew in scale and traversed the boundaries of private and public.

    Lecturer Dr Lauren Batt recently completed a PhD with the University of Sheffield in collaboration with the Collections Department at Chatsworth. Her thesis examined power and authority on the Chatsworth Estate between 1811 and 1877, focusing in particular on servants and estate workers. She subsequently worked with the image and ephemera collection at Derby Museums, in preparation for the opening of the Museum of Making, and as a Project Curator for the National Trust at Hardwick Hall. Lauren now works in the Curatorial Department at Welbeck Abbey in Nottinghamshire, and continues to research topics including historic graffiti, domestic service and model architecture on nineteenth-century country estates. At home, she is an enthusiastic but woefully inept gardener.