Visit from Edward Kemp

Following the purchase in 1870 of Bailey Hill from Lady Augusta Mostyn for £400, in 1871, the Mold Town Board commissioned Edward Kemp, a renowned landscape gardener to produce a report on possible improvements to the park. Kemp visited Bailey Hill in August 1871 and submitted his report in September 1871. It urged the Board to remove some trees, improve sightlines, create a new combined bowling green and croquet lawn plus an outdoor gymnasium, use plants to enhance boundary walls, design new wrought-iron gates, and use certain recommended plants. It seems that Kemp’s ideas were partially adopted as and when local funds and inclinations allowed and many of his suggested plants and trees are still to be found on Bailey Hill.

The full copy of Kemp’s Bailey Hill report can be seen in the Wrexham and Denbigh Advertiser on September 16, 1871 (National Library of Wales archive)

Kemp was famous for having supervised the building of the first publicly owned and built park in the world, Birkenhead Park, originally designed by Joseph Paxton, which opened in 1847. Kemp and Edward Milner had both been apprenticed to Joseph Paxton at Chatsworth Gardens. Edward Milner went on to design the Laburnum Arch and wooded valley slopes at Bodnant Gardens. Frederick Law Olmstead (designer of Central Park, New York) visited Birkenhead Park and he and Thomas Hayter Mawson both expressed their admiration for Kemp’s work. Kemp also designed public parks himself, such as Grosvenor Park in Chester, Stanley Park and Newsham Park in Liverpool, and many private gardens and cemeteries, often in Cheshire and Lancashire. His numerous publications included several advising on ‘how to lay out a garden’, and he authored a detailed guide to the parks of London.

Additional information:

Edward Kemp (1817-1891). Married Sophie Bailey.

Clearly a well-connected and influential man, Kemp also had close connections to Biddulph Grange Garden (a grand Victorian garden in the international style) created by James Bateman.

Elizabeth Davey’s Gazeteer of Kemp’s commissions (published by the Gardens Trust as part of a Kemp symposium) gives the best indication of extent of his extensive private practice after he completed work at Birkenhead Park. But there are other unlisted smaller private gardens where Kemp made his mark. The Gardens Trust website contains the best collection of information on Kemp with several journal articles on the topic.

Born in Streatham (London), he later settled at Birkenhead, and was buried at Flaybrick Cemetery, Birkenhead.