'A Veritable Eden'. The Manchester Botanic Garden : A History EPUB

The Manchester Botanical and Horticultural Society was founded in 1827 to allow members the opportunity to study botany and horticulture and to create an ambience "not unlike a fashionable resort".

Today the Garden is all but forgotten and only the former entrance gates and a street name remain.

This book, illustrated with many contemporary engravings and postcards, charts the history of the Garden; its international reputation in horticultural developments and many floral triumphs; its recurrent financial crises and ultimate degeneration into a venue for cat and dog shows and final conversion to a doomed amusement park.

Ann Brooks studied Pharmacy at Manchester University followed by a varied career in hospital pharmacy.

Her great love of gardening and the history of the gardening movement led her to return to academia and she completed a PhD in 2007 on The Manchester Botanic Garden and the Movement for Subscription Botanic Gardens.

She is the co-author of a number of papers on the history of Manchester and is currently writing a book on the movement for subscription botanic gardens and conducting research on Victorian villa gardens.