The past, present and future of Mayfield, one of Manchester’s foremost industrial areas, now a world-class urban park at the centre of Manchester's new green quarter, will be told through an art installation and exhibition of historic botanical fabrics, to coincide with the First RHS Urban Show taking place at the city’s Mayfield Depot later this month (18th - 21st April).
Displayed in a former railway arch next door to the show’s venue and alongside Mayfield Park, the free exhibition will reveal fabric prints of exotic, imaginary gardens that were produced on the site almost 300 years ago when the land was owned by the cloth merchant Thomas Hoyle.
Called Dream Gardens of Mayfield, the exhibition will chart the history and regeneration of the area, from its time at the centre of a thriving textile industry, when up to 10 miles of fabric were produced on the site each day, through its years of abandonment and neglect, right up to the present day where it has been transformed into Mayfield Park - the first new city-centre park to be built in Manchester for over a century.
A shining example of how nature can be integrated into the urban landscape, the park combines biodiverse ecological areas including water and wetlands, trees and wildflowers, long lawns and rain gardens, with play areas and recreational spaces for visitors.
Open across all four days of the RHS event, the exhibition, which will be hosted by the team behind the area’s regeneration, will celebrate Mayfield’s rich history, demonstrating how it has helped to shape the future of the area as a new neighbourhood with homes, workplaces, shops, restaurants and cultural spaces all set amongst the picturesque surroundings of Mayfield Park.
Images:The
Original ‘patterns’ samples are in the Manchester City Museum
Collection, from the Mayfield Patternbook 1884 , Photographed by Dan
Dubowitz 2024 (original size is c. 5cm x 10cm for all pattern samples).
Visitors will also be offered free walking tours of the Park, hosted by the people who designed it and who are working on the continued transformation of the area. Guests will have the opportunity to ask the team questions about the 15-year regeneration project, with visitors encouraged to provide their feedback and ideas on what they’d like to see included in the next phases of the transformation at Mayfield.
Local schools have also been invited to enjoy the park over the four days of the show, including taking part in a number of planting workshops run by head gardener Mark Pickering and design workshops with architects ShedKM.
They will also have the opportunity to speak to Jason Williams, also known as The Cloud Gardener, who will be exploring how we bring horticulture into the heart of our towns and cities as part of the RHS Urban Show.
Mayfield Park, the first city-centre park built in Manchester for 100 years, has transformed a previously derelict area of the city into a biodiverse expanse of green and blue, thanks to a ground-breaking strategy by The Mayfield Partnership, the team behind its development.
Image by Richard Bloom
Once riddled with contaminates and with decades of industrial use behind it, the 6.5 acre park will be the centrepiece of a 24-acre development of residential, commercial and retail buildings.
Crossing the line between civic space and urban garden, it includes a seasonally-shifting mix of 63,000 plants, a wildflower meadow, ornamental grasses and 140 trees of 40 different species.
Designed by Studio Egret West, the park was made possible by a public-private partnership between Manchester City Council, Transport for Greater Manchester, LCR and developer Landsec-U+I, and is a visionary move to establish a high-quality landscape scheme that can respond to the climate crisis as well as creating a nature-rich haven for visitors, in a city where people can easily lose contact with the natural world.
