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In 1833 the Sheffield Botanical and Horticultural Society was formed to promote both healthy recreation and self education, through the development of a botanical garden. A period of fundraising followed and the Gardens were finally opened on the 29th and 30th June, and 4th and 5th July, 1836, when more than 12,000 visited. The Gardens were only open to the general public on four Gala days per year; otherwise admission was limited to shareholders and annual subscribers. General free admission only occurred after the Town Trust assumed control of the Gardens in 1898.
The Society appointed Robert Marnock, gardener of Bretton Hall, Wakefield (now the Yorkshire Sculpture Park), to design the Gardens and act as their first Curator. He laid out the Gardens in the then highly fashionable Gardenesque style, where each plant was dislayed to perfection in scattered plantings.
The Sheffield Society held a national competition to obtain a design for the glass pavilions, Marnock won first prize. The glasshouses are very important examples of curvilinear glass structures, and are some of the earliest ever built. Originally, the central pavilion was a tropical palm house, with the two smaller pavilions housing temperate plants. All three were once joined together by glass walkways in the "ridge and furrow" style of Paxton's glasshouse at Chatsworth.
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