00:00For generations, Sefton Park Palm House has been a familiar and much loved feature of
00:04Liverpool life. First opened in 1896 as an indoor garden, it offered Victorian visitors
00:11a window to the wider world through rare and exotic plants. Now in 2026, the Palm House
00:16is marking both 130 years since it first opened and 25 years since that community led reopening.
00:25We are really excited to be working in partnership with the brilliant team at Liverpool Central
00:29Library. We took our archive material to the records office last year and since then the
00:35team have been going through and catalogue and all of that like really interesting, unique
00:39pieces of history from the time when the Palm House was saved. So the exhibition itself is
00:43called Save It and it really tells the story of how this Palm House, this beautiful building
00:48we're in today, was saved for local people by people taking action and community organising.
00:54Its story's not been a straightforward one after falling into serious disrepair during
00:59the 1980s, the future of the Palm House was uncertain. Its survival and eventual reopening
01:05in 2001 came down to a determined local campaign to save the building.
01:10If those people 25 years ago hadn't taken action when they saw this building derelict in the 1980s
01:17and 1990s, if they hadn't taken action we wouldn't have this beautiful resource that we have for
01:23us all to enjoy today. So it is something that I think is really inspiring, like we know it inspires our team
01:29and it inspires our public as well. To recognise their milestone year, a year long programme of free and fundraising
01:36events are taking place alongside a new supporters campaign. The new supporters campaign gives people a chance to contribute
01:42directly to the Palm House's upkeep, botanical collection and community events.
01:46New for 2026, we've got a new supporters campaign, a new supporters membership scheme and that's really because
01:53we know that people loved the Palm House back in the 1990s when they came together to save it but people still have
01:59that love and affection for this place today. The Palm House has recently become Liverpool's only RHS partner garden.
02:05It's the first time that the quality of the plant collection that we have here has really been recognised
02:10and so we're really delighted that the expertise of our gardener, Colin Hughes, is recognised through that award.
02:17Today the Palm House operates as a heritage visitor attraction, an educational community space
02:22and an award-winning wedding and events venue with a cafe that helps support its charitable work.
02:28We're also hosting a brilliant community show garden so we're working with some local schools, local colleges.
02:35We've also got things like garden lates in the summer so obviously Sefton Park and the Palm House,
02:40beautiful place to be in the summertime. So we're going to open lates on some nights so people can enjoy a drink,
02:46listen to some music and just really relax in this beautiful environment.
02:50Later on in the year we've got a Palm House festival and that will include things like heritage open days
02:56and we've got a team partner drawing festival in October.
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