Birmingham Botanical Gardens & Glasshouses

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Botanic gardens of 1830s designed by J C Loudon which retain many original and 19th-century features including the overall layout and range of glasshouses.

DESCRIPTION

LOCATION, AREA, BOUNDARIES, LANDFORM, SETTING

The 4ha Botanic Gardens lie on the south side of Westbourne Road in Edgbaston, c 3km south-west of the centre of Birmingham. On the east side the Gardens are adjoined by Edgbaston High School for Girls, on the west side by private housing and the courts of the Edgbaston Archery and Lawn Tennis Society, while the southern tip abuts allotments and Westbourne Road Leisure Gardens (qv). Despite lying within a built-up area the Gardens have a notably open aspect to the south, with views down the Chad Valley.

ENTRANCES AND APPROACHES

The Gardens are entered off Westbourne Road. There is a car park on the north-east edge of the site. The entrance lodge (listed grade II) of 1840 with a canted two-storey end towards Westbourne Road was greatly extended and modernised in the later 1980s with a new glass entrance hall, gallery space and shop. From this there is access to the structure housing the National Bonsai Collection (see below).

OTHER LAND

Leading off the Westbourne Road entrance is the C19 L-shaped range of glasshouses which replaced that begun in 1832 to a design by J Jones & Co of Mount Street, Birmingham. The first glasshouse is the Tropical House of 1852 (rebuilt 1990-1), in the centre of which is a raised circular pool. This House leads into the most prominent of the structures, the Palm House of 1871 (listed grade II) which stands at the south-east angle of the range. This is an 8m high square glasshouse with pyramidal roof, which originally rose in two stages but since rebuilding after a collapse in the late 1960s only one, supported externally by panelled Corinthian pilasters. Internally the main architectural feature is an elaborate fountain and basin. From the Palm House there is access to the south range of 1884 (listed grade II), comprising the Orangery and, on the west side of its central entrance, the Cactus and Succulent House. Behind (north of ) the south range of glasshouses are the Terrace Suite and Bar, which take the place of an Exhibition Hall opened in 1884. Also behind the south range is a boiler house, over which rises an elaborate blue-brick chimney with decorative cap. Built on to the south-east corner of the Palm House is the Pavilion Restaurant of c 1990 with, to its north, a structure housing the National Bonsai Collection, opened in 1993.

Running along the south side of the south range of glasshouses is a terrace (in the 1990s known as the Loudon Terrace) with a broad path and edging of lawn and formal beds. From this there are sweeping views over the tongue-shaped Main Lawn below the terrace and over the wooded Chad Valley beyond. A path, screened from the car park by a beech hedge, runs around the edge of the Lawn. This gives access to the Lawn Aviary of 1996 on the south-east side of the Lawn, four tall, domed, iron flight cages grouped around a central concourse. On the north side of the Aviary is the sunken formal Rose Garden of 1995. Midway down the west side of the Lawn is an octagonal iron bandstand (listed grade II) of 1873, designed by F B Osborn. The third structure around the Lawn stands at the north-west corner, an octagonal, pierced-work, cast-iron gazebo of c 1850 of somewhat oriental inspiration moved to the Botanical Gardens in the mid 1990s from 32 Church Road, Edgbaston.

West of the bandstand is a Coade stone fountain with basin, designed and presented in 1850 by Charles Edge, a prominent Birmingham architect. This forms the hub of a network of sinuous, looping paths which radiates north and south down the west side of the Main Lawn. To the north the paths give access to the Pinetum, whose many mature specimens form a windbreak to the west of the Main Lawn. West of and below the Pinetum are the Winter Garden, and the West Lawn and Herbaceous Border. To the south of the fountain is the Rock (or Alpine) Garden and Pool of 1895, with to the south the Rhododendron Walk and the Ernest 'China' Wilson Border. Beyond, forming the southernmost elements of the gardens within the network of paths, are the Azalea Walk, and the Fern Walk and Woodland Glade laid out 1862(8 during the Pteridomania craze and restored during the 1990s. On the west side of the path looping around the Rhododendron Walk is a Conservation Garden created in 1991. South of this, and occupying the southern corner of the Gardens, is its Nursery. Some of the brick sheds are C19.

At the north-west corner of the Gardens, and separated from the glasshouses by a rectangular Alpine Yard (replacing an earlier Rose Garden) is the Curator's Lodge, built in the 1960s. In 1999 this was extended to become a Study Centre. South of this, against the east boundary of the Gardens, is a series of three (Roman, Medieval, Tudor) Period Gardens created in 1994. Adjoining the Roman Garden to the south is a Waterfowl Pool, south of which is a children's playground. From this there is access west to a museum housed in the ornate red-brick Teulon Cottage (listed grade II), a lodge-like structure of 1847 designed by S S Teulon. Incorporated into the Gardens in 1930, the Cottage may have been constructed to accommodate an employee of the Edgbaston Archery & Lawn Tennis Society, allegedly the world's first lawn tennis club, which in the 1840s took over part of the Gardens given up by the Society and whose courts still adjoin the Botanic Gardens to the east. In the garden of Teulon Cottage is a brick seat or shelter moved to the Botanic Gardens from the walled garden at Bournville.

Near the west boundary is a rock garden constructed in 1895 in memory of Sir Hugh Nettlefold, an important benefactor. Water is supplied from a natural spring, the overflow being piped to create an area for moisture-loving perennials.

REFERENCES Used by English Heritage

The Gardeners' Magazine 8, (1832), pp 407-28

The Gardeners' Magazine 15, (1839), p 456

The Gardeners' Chronicle, (28 September 1872), pp 1291-2; (9 December 1893), pp 723-4

Garden History 8, (1980), pp 66-74

M Hadfield et al, British Gardeners: A Biographical Dictionary (1981), p 58

R Sidwell, West Midland Gardens (1981), pp 201-3

Phillipa Ballard, An Oasis of Delight: The History of the Birmingham Botanical Gardens (1981)

The Birmingham Botanical Gardens & Glasshouses Souvenir Guide, guidebook, (no date, around 1995)

Maps

Beilby, Knott and Beilby, Map of Birmingham, 1828 (Birmingham Reference Library)

OS 25" to 1 mile: 1st edition published 1890; 2nd edition published 1904; 1945 edition

Description written: October 1997

Amended: April 1999

Edited: October 1999