Mayfield Park historical botanical prints exhibition

Running alongside the RHS Urban Show, Mayfield Park hosts an exhibition charting its history from 18th century industrial site, to its current transformation as a world-class park.

Mayfield Park
credit: Richard Bloom

Hosted by the team behind the area’s regeneration, the exhibition is a celebration of Mayfield’s rich history to demonstrate 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 in the picturesque park.

Titled the ‘Dream Gardens of Mayfield’, the exhibition charts 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.

The exhibition features an art installation and a series of historic botanical fabrics of exotic, imaginary gardens produced at Mayfield 300 years ago when the land was owned by the cloth merchant Thomas Hoyle. The free to access exhibition is located in a former railway arch next door to the RHS Urban Show venue and the park. There are free walking tours organised through 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.

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. 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.