Princes Park is the earliest public park in Liverpool, and the nearest to the city centre. It was originally a private development, funded by the sale of grand perimeter houses, and designed by the famous Joseph Paxton. It opened in 1842. It was a mild dry day, but overcast and gloomy. Last week’s Storm Bert blew off most of the remaining autumn-coloured leaves, but a few are still hanging on in sheltered corners.
We looked at some of the rare and interesting trees. Their Wollemi Pine, still in its weed-filled cage, has grown quite tall but is now looking a bit tufty.
We didn’t find the Golden Rain / Pride of India tree again, and we should have had the map with us. There is a Cherry Walk, with nothing much to see at the moment, of course. The park is also said to have some Great White Cherries, a variety once extinct in Japan, but restored from a cutting in a Sussex garden. The ones here are near the tennis courts, in the north-west arm of the park, a spot we rarely go to. We ought to make an effort to catch the cherries in bloom next spring. We also looked at the Joseph Paxton memorial tree, a Chinese Tulip Tree, looking very promising within its set of fine railings.
We could hear Ring-necked Parakeets but hardly caught sight of them. Otherwise the open spaces had Pigeons, Crows and Magpies. The lake had Mallards, Coots and lots of Moorhens. The male and female Moorhens have identical plumage, but the males are slightly larger. Is this a male-female pair? With the male at the top of the picture?
Also on the lake was one distant Tufted Duck and two Little Grebes.
We made a quick sortie out of the park to the nearest McDonalds to use their facilities, then back for lunch. Under a nearby Oak, a Jay was poking through the leaf litter, but there didn’t seem to be any acorns left.
On the way out we noticed a big red-berried Cotoneaster. The Friends’ tree map says it is a variety called ‘Cornubia’, and Trees and Shrubs Online says “This is one of the very finest of the larger growing cotoneasters. It bears enormous crops of brilliant red fruits and is not surpassed in that respect by any other cotoneaster.
Public transport details: Bus 86A from Elliott Street at 10.10, which didn’t go the way we expected, so we had to walk back to the park from the Women’s Hospital. Returned from Princes Road / Princes Gate West on bus 75 at 1.17, arriving Liverpool 1.25.
Next week we plan to go to Chester, meeting at Central Station.