A Marnock Bench

As part of the celebrations, the Friends of Sheffield Botanical Gardens are commissioning a pair of benches inspired by a Victorian engraving.

A bench appears in an image of the Gardens that was published in 1840 in Harwood’s Scenery of Great Britain and was available as letter-headed paper (the forerunner of picture postcards). The image was published five years later by Marnock in his United Gardeners and Land Stewards Journal and by the third curator at the Botanical Gardens, John Law, in an 1849 catalogue of plants. The Friends’ archives include a copy of an undated coloured version of the same image.

The 1840 Harwood image of Sheffield Botanical Gardens, with a bench shown in the middle-ground to the left. © Victoria and Albert Museum, London (permitted non-commercial use).

Two benches inspired by this 1840 image are being made in reclaimed tropical timber and carbon finished steel, by local craftsmen Finbarr Lucas and Chris Lenton. One bench is being funded by the family of a former Chair of the Friends and will be inscribed ‘Jill’s Seat’ in her memory; the other is being funded by the Friends.

The first mock-up of a bench, to test for comfort and proportion. (c) Finbarr Lucas.

We hope that both benches will be in the Botanical Gardens in time for this summer’s Marnock celebrations.

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