30th Anniversary of the Butterfly Park: 2023

The 4th May 2023 saw New Ferry Butterfly Park hold its 12th Opening Day. This marked the start of the 28th season of being open to the public. Despite the drizzle, there were 567 guests on the day. They enjoyed the BBQ, delicious homemade cakes, a magnificent plant sale, stalls of local talented crafters and children’s craft activities, including making badges and sowing seeds in newspaper pots. It was a first sight for many of the revamped wildlife demonstration garden dedicated to the park’s founder Mel Roberts. There was lots of information and inspiration to get people started on their own wildflower adventure.

Caroline Lancelyn Green,
guest of honour at the 2023 Butterfly Park Open Day

The guest of honour for the day was Caroline Lancelyn Green. Caroline is a long-term supporter of the Park. She and her family host fundraising garden parties at nearby Poulton Hall from which the park has benefited. Caroline, who is delightfully theatrical, rose to the occasion and came along in a wonderful butterfly scarf which she unfurled to applause.

Caroline came to unveil the latest feature at the park, a new information lectern dedicated to the industrial heritage of the park. This lectern was made possible by a legacy from the late Frank Cottrell, a former chair of Wirral Wildlife and a former Cheshire Wildlife Trust Trustee, combined with donations made in his memory and funding from the Wirral Wildlife. Hilary Ash read a tribute to Frank and said, “He would be wryly amused to be now part of the history of the park.” It was Frank who persuaded the Cheshire Wildlife Trust to take on New Ferry Butterfly Park.

The industrial heritage information board

Sunday 8th October was a warm October day - perfect weather for all things appley. Volunteers at New Ferry Butterfly Park organized an afternoon to celebrate locally grown apples.

A selection of the apples on display at the apple afternoon in October 2023

The first Apple Day was organised on 21st October 1990 by Common Ground to celebrate apples and orchards. Many traditional orchards were being dug up and the country became reliant on imported apples despite about 3,000 apple varieties having been grown in the UK. The aim was to bring the wide variety of local apples to the attention of the public.

John Bateman collected apples and manned the apple press so that visitors could taste freshly pressed juice. We had 21 varieties of apples picked from Brimstage and Upton Hall School orchards plus two varieties from the NFBP committee chairman’s garden. What wonderful names these old varieties have – some dating back to the 17th century. Some varieties like Peasgood’s Nonsuch are named after the person who raised them. Others like Lord Lambourne are named after a person. Catshead is named because of its shape, Red Love for the colour of its skin and flesh and Bee Bench after the tradition of taking bee hives to orchards to pollinate the flowers.

The apple juicing equipment

2023 was also the year we had to reline the pond.

The previous year we realised that the pond had a leak. Water levels had been low all season but even the autumn rains didn’t raise the water level. The pond liner, all 350kg of it, cost us over £3000. It was (slowly and carefully) moved into position at the end of the pond, attached to ropes and a winch, and very slowly unrolled into the pond, rolled along the base, then up the other side. At which point we heaved a sigh of relief and had lunch! We were eventually able to run in 4000 litres of water from our 4 big tanks plus all we had stored in buckets, barrels and an old bath. Some pond weed went back in and a number of newts, diving beetles, dragonfly larvae and doubtless other life. So it was beginning to look like a pond again, ready for a resumption of pond dipping.

Adding buckets of water back to the pond

Adding a pond dipping platform to a refilled pond