Sheffiled Botanical Garden
Synchronicities .... As I took part in the second artbook fair in Nottingham this year, I met Rosemary Watson who invited me to talk about my work in her group Artists Book Club Sheffield . Jude, one of the participants, happened to be a volunteer guide at the Sheffield Botanical Garden. She kindly invited us for a visit last May. We admired and smelt all the flowers and I pretended to know the name of a few ... I would say that my knowledge of plants is more emotional than horticultural.... While it is generally recognised that the problems of urban overcrowding and epidemics in the nineteenth century eventually led to a realisation of the need to provide open spaces in industrial towns, it is interesting to note that the Sheffield Botanical and Horticultural Society Garden was open only to subscribers and the site selected was in a spacious middle class suburb, well away from the overcrowded working class area of the city. Even as late as 1852 a motion to admit the working clas...