International Garden Festival

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Commemorative coffee mug from the festival, showing a cartoon Liver bird.

The International Garden Festival was a festival held in Liverpool from 2 May 1984 to 14 October 1984. It was the first such national Garden Festival held in Britain, and became the model for several others held during the 1980s and early 1990s. The aim was to revitalise tourism and the city of Liverpool which had been in decline, and the idea came from Conservative Environment Minister Michael Heseltine.

[edit] The festival

The festival was held on a 950,000 square metre derelict industrial site in the docks near the Dingle. On this site was built a festival hall and 60 individual gardens, attractions such as a Yellow Submarine, Japanese garden and a walk of fame.

The festival was hugely popular, attracting 3,380,000 visitors.

[edit] The festival site

Demolition of the Festival Hall, once the focal point of the Garden Festival, has begun.

Since the festival closed, the site passed through the hands of a series of developers, with half of the site being turned into residential housing. In November 2006 local companies Langtree and McLean announced plans for the site that will see more than 1,000 new homes built around the cleared dome area, as well as the restoration of the original gardens created for the festival in 1984.