Sefton Park Palm House

Erected in 1896 thanks to a £10,000 gift from local benefactor Henry Yates Thompson, Sefton Park's Palm House was meant, at last, to give an architectural heart to a park that had opened twenty-four years earlier without a major building. Its octagonal iron-and-glass structure, topped with domes, was built by the Scottish firm Mackenzie & Moncur, active across the United Kingdom. Damaged by bombing during the Second World War and then left derelict for decades, the greenhouse underwent a £3.5 million restoration completed in 2001. It now holds collections of tropical and subtropical plants, along with commemorative statues of explorers and botanists around its central pool. Now one of Liverpool's most photographed landmarks, it remains a symbol of Victorian ornamental ironwork.