Palm House

A trip down memory lane for us this afternoon.

We travelled to Liverpool and visited Sefton Park. A highlight is the Palm House.

Fourty years ago, J lived very close by - an era when flats were called flats, not apartments. And we visited the Palm House - we looked at some photographs from 1983 on our return home. There were colourful spring flowers inside in window boxes, but the tropical plants were struggling. Subsequently the whole place went to wrack and ruin, with the glass failing, and it became a rusty skeleton. Totally derelict. But a campaign led by local residents and park users, and successful fund raising, saved it. At the turn of this century the structure was dismantled, restored, rebuilt, replanted and reopened.

It required a lot of continuing voluntary effort, but it’s in a much happier place now - lovely outside and in, and a venue for a whole variety of events. It closed early mid afternoon, to prepare for a wedding open evening. It’s apparently been voted the Best City Wedding venue in the UK wedding awards.

The structure is surrounded by statues, and I took a pic of Captain James Cook in 1983. He’s now wearing a large ruff (extra), as are Columbus and Henry the Navigator. Designed by artist Taya Hughes they represent fabrics associated with the indigenous populations of the lands they claimed to have “discovered”. Attitudes ( and our understanding) have changed a lot in fourty years.