1833-1844

At a public meeting on 6 May 1833, it was resolved ‘that Botanical & Horticultural Gardens should be established’ and a petition signed by 85 influential Sheffield residents was submitted to the Master Cutler, Thomas Dunn. Dunn responded by chairing a meeting, on 13 June in the Savings Bank on Surrey Street, at which a committee of 24 gentlemen was elected in order to select a suitable site for the Garden and frame the Society rules for its funding through a share issue, construction and management.

The Society took practical advice from several leading horticultural experts of the age, including Joseph Cooper, gardener to Earl Fitzwilliam of Wentworth and Joseph Harrison, gardener to Lord Wharncliffe, of Wortley Hall. Although the Committee had originally planned to lease the land, the response to the share issue was so positive, even though the shares were priced at £20 each [roughly an equivalent of £2666 in 2021], that they raised the capital amount to £10,000 and were able to purchase 18 acres of south-facing farmland from the Wilson family, the snuff manufacturers.

The Society held a competition for laying out the grounds and the submitted plans were judged by experienced garden designers: Joseph Paxton (who was head gardener for the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth), Joseph Cooper (Earl Fitzwilliam, Wentworth), Neil Wilson (Earl Howe, Gopsall), Joseph Harrison (Lord Wharncliffe, Wortley) and Mr Walker (Rev. Bagshaw, Banner Cross). Robert Marnock, head gardener at Bretton Hall, Wakefield [now the Yorkshire Sculpture Park] was the winner; he was appointed as the first curator and instructed to lay out the Gardens. The runner up, Benjamin Broomhead Taylor, a local co-designer of the recently opened Cutlers’ Hall, was appointed as architect for all the buildings on the site.

By the mid-1830s a new style of garden design was emerging, termed ‘gardenesque’ by the great garden journalist and designer John Claudius Loudon (1783-1843), this style of naturalistic design was more suited to domestic-scale plots than the grandeur of the established ‘picturesque’ style. Loudon’s ideas strongly influenced Marnock as he began to lay out the Gardens. All the trees, shrubs and plants were positioned and managed in such a way that each plant could be displayed to its full potential in scattered planting. Small landscapes were created to promote beauty, variety and mystery, with connecting winding paths, dotted island beds and expanses of grass. A graceful four-tier fountain was installed as a focal point at the southern end of the Broadwalk leading down the slope from the conservatories. An area on the eastern side, shielded from the extensive pleasure grounds by a beech hedge, was developed for educational purposes with herbaceous plants grouped together in botanical families.

Benjamin Broomhead Taylor is said to have been inspired by the Ionic temple on the Ilisos River in Athens for his design of the Main Entrance and Gatehouse on Clarkehouse Road. The buildings were constructed with Derbyshire Spa gritstone, hand worked with a tooled finish. Greenmoor Rock, a fine-grained sandstone, from the nearby Brocco Bank quarry was used for the steps.

The rooms on the western side of the Gatehouse provided a lodge for the gatekeeper. The space to the east was originally the Society’s Committee Room.

The original Curator’s House was built in 1836 for Robert Marnock. It was situated ‘near the south western extremity of the range of conservatories’ and was ‘a commodious stone house built in a substantial and handsome style’. After he left, the house was let to a paying tenant in 1840 and the next curator remained in the original farm cottage. The house and cottage were demolished in about 1900.

The South Lodge was described as a ‘Swiss cottage’ and was provided as a residence for the park keeper at the southern entrance to the Gardens.

This range of three domes linked by ridge-and-furrow sections were designed by Benjamin Broomhead Taylor.

Originally known as the conservatories, these imposing glasshouses were designed by Benjamin Broomhead Taylor, who probably consulted with Marnock, Paxton and Loudon. The result consisted of three domes linked by ridge-and-furrow sections. The domes were modelled on Loudon’s designs and remain as very important early examples of curvilinear glass structures. They are mounted on Corinthian pillars made of buff-coloured sandstone from a quarry near Bakewell in Derbyshire. The ridge-and-furrow sections were undoubtedly inspired by Joseph Paxton’s work. The conservatories were completed just before Paxton’s Great Stove at Chatsworth.

According to Marnock’s plant catalogue published in 1838, the central dome housed tropical plants such as date palm, papyrus, sugar cane, coffee, cinnamon and bananas. A small stove (hot house) contained orchids, pitcher plants and a number of exotic ferns. The smaller glasshouses housed tender plants from temperate climes, such as brugmansias, banksias, fuchsias, acacias and camellias.

The Gardens were formally opened on 29 and 30 June, and 4 and 5 July 1836, when more than 12,000 people visited.

The Gardens were only open to the general public on a limited number of Gala Days when adults were charged one shilling and children half price. These events featured special attractions, such as gas balloon ascents or fireworks, with military and brass bands. Except for the Gala Days admission was restricted to shareholders and annual subscribers.

The Grade II listed Bear Pit can be found between the Mediterranean and Himalayan gardens. It was constructed as a zoological exhibition space for the Garden and was never used for bear-baiting, which by that time was illegal. At the grand opening in 1836 it was occupied by a black bear. The Gardens also held cages of monkeys, a deer, a fox, parrots and a pair of eagles. In 1839 the attempt to combine zoological with botanical exhibits was ended because, according to a report from Loudon: ‘The filth, stench, roaring, howling and other annoyances incident to carnivorous animals, are altogether inconsistent with the repose which is essential to a botanic garden’.

The pit and adjoining quarry were the used to store lumber before being transformed into ‘a romantic little retreat, filled with evergreens’ in 1848. However, in 1855, the Bear Pit was brought back to its original use when Sir Henry Hunloke from Wingerworth Hall presented the Gardens with two brown bears. However, the shareholders denounced the bears as a ‘waste of money’ at the AGM in 1858 and the bears were put up for sale in March 1859.

A curious legend about a bear killing a child appears to have been started in 1932 by the fourth curator’s granddaughter and can only be explained as a misremembered childhood story. There is certainly no contemporary evidence of such an event.

Robert Marnock was born at Kintore, East Aberdeenshire, In his twenties he began working as a gardener at Bretton Hall in Yorkshire. After winning the design competition, he was appointed the first curator at the Botanical Gardens at an annual salary of £100. He also acted as a landscape consultant for the General Cemetery, across the Porter Valley from the Gardens.

While at Sheffield he was involved in the publication of a number of gardening magazines. From 1836 to 1842 he edited the monthly Floricultural Magazine, and for several years from 1845 he edited the weekly United Gardeners’ and Land Stewards’ Journal.

Marnock left the Gardens at the end of 1839 to set up a nursery in Hackney, London, but was appointed curator of the Royal Botanic Society’s garden in Regent’s Park in September 1840, a position he held until his resignation in 1863.

Marnock’s work at Regent’s Park and later as a freelance landscape consultant led to the recognition of him as one of the leading landscape gardeners of the age. He was to return to Sheffield several times to oversee garden creations. Two significant local commissions were: Thornbury, a mansion of the cutlery and steel magnate Frederick Mappin (now a private hospital) in 1865; and Weston Park which was the first municipal park in 1873. He designed many other outstanding gardens across the country before retiring in 1879, although he continued to give advice on landscape gardening until the spring of 1889 when he designed his last private garden, that of Sir Henry Peek at Rousdon near Lyme Regis.

On a personal note, Marnock married Anne Hobson in 1838 while he was based in Sheffield. They had two daughters and a son. He spent his last years in Aberdeenshire with his two daughters, rambling over the mountains in search of wild flowers. He died in London on 15 November 1889 and after cremation his ashes were deposited in his wife’s grave at Kensal Green Cemetery on 20 November 1889.