This used to be a place where families didn’t want to come – now local residents use it

Jul 19 2008 by Peter Elson, Liverpool Daily Post

Hundreds of orphan children were interred here, besides numerous seamen.

A stone commemorates May Lee, wife of William Lee Foo, who died, at the age of 24, on April 25, 1900.

Nearby lies Phoebe, daughter of JB Pratt, of Sierra Leone, who died in 1863, aged 17 years.

Above us, a chaffinch bounces between the trees, twittering its alarm.

Canon Hawley is on the look-out for a resident great spotted woodpecker, but there is no sound of drilling to be heard above the buzz of other wildlife.

There are plenty of blue tits, great tits and longtailed tits flitting about.

They provide another indicator of the level of thriving nature – but perhaps one that the tits would not find agreeable.

“They form a sparrowhawks’ food source and their presence is a good sign of a lot of caterpillars.

“Too much weed spraying kills off caterpillars which then interrupts the food chain,” says Canon Hawley.

“We’re delighted to have the sparrowhawks, and perhaps other raptors will follow.

“There are peregrine falcons in Exeter Cathedral towers, but not here yet.”

ST JAMES’S Park was laid out as a cemetery in 1827-9 by the Georgian Liverpool architect John Foster Jnr, and was in use until 1936.

The overcrowded burial-grounds attached to town churches were a major public health hazard by the early 19th century.

“St James’s Cemetery was an exceptionally ambitious attempt at a sanitary alternative.

“It lies in the sombre depths of a rocky hollow,” explains architectural historian Joseph Sharples.

At the entrance is The Oratory, a Greek temple-style building, designed by Foster, where services were held before internment.

Foster converted the eastern quarry face into monumental terraces, with giant ramps for the funeral processions’ access, lined with catacombs.

Now it is covered in ivy, a home to many moths and butterflies, including holly blues and swallowtails.

The cemetery floor was cleared for the park in 1969-71 (now well cared for by Liverpool City Council).

Still standing is the circular-domed temple-like Huskisson Mausoleum, also by Foster, built in 1833.

Based on the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, it marks the grave of William Huskisson, the Liverpool MP who was killed at the opening of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway.

peter.elson@dailypost.co.uk