July 2024. The Pavilions. Botanical Gardens, Sheffield.
Inside, it is hotter than the rest of Europe. Tall Australian plants shade a small fountain and water plays, calming the souls of those who want to escape the sunshine.
A boy and girl wander in, survivors from the south, who talk about things that I don’t understand, and I know that they are students who have adopted the city for better or worse. He wears a tee-shirt with ‘Henley Rowing Club’ across the front.
“They should get exotic birds in here,” he says, and I almost reply, “It’s funny you should say that.” (This used to be an aviary, with a popular pair of macaws).
She examines a plant and announces that it is a Callistemon, and the boy looks over her shoulder and tells her that it is a Bottlebrush, which turns out to be the same thing.
I’m impressed with their knowledge, but such is my ignorance, they could have called them anything, and I console myself that in a few hours time, they’ll probably be behaving badly in city centre bars.
Nothing is more beautiful, but it hasn’t always been this way.
Designed by Benjamin Broomhead Taylor, who came second (to Robert Marnock) in the competition to design the Botanical Gardens in the 1830s, they have a troubled history.
Two freak hailstorms in 1843 and 1858 damaged thousands of panes of glass. In December 1941, WWII bombers damaged the pavilions, and by the 1990s, they were derelict and boarded up.
But the boy and girl are oblivious to all this, they are living for now, with eyes fixed only on the future.
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