Founder Arthur Kilpin Bulley
Ness Botanic Gardens will be celebrating the 150th anniversary of its founder’s birth on Monday 10 January 2011 with free entry to all visitors.
In 1898, Arthur Kilpin Bulley, a Liverpool cotton broker, founded Ness Gardens by building his house on a gorse-covered sandstone out crop. He systematically incorporated surrounding fields into what has now become one of the country’s leading botanic gardens, a learning garden with plant introductions from all over the world.
On his behalf, pioneering plant collectors scoured the temperate regions of the Far East for alpine and hardy plants which could be cultivated in our climate. After his death the gardens, surrounding farm land, cottages and main house were bequeathed to the University by his daughter Lois Bulley, in 1948.
As part of the day, there will be an exhibition in the Horsfall Rushby Visitor Centre featuring material from the archives illustrating the life of Arthur Kilpin Bulley.