An international collection
The garden was the vision of one man, James Bateman who, from 1841, spent more than twenty years collecting plants from all over the world. Bateman didn't go on many of the expeditions himself, instead he employed plant hunters who sent the specimens back to him by sea.
The plants and trees were brought together at Biddulph amid rockwork, topiary, tree-stumps and an extraordinary collection of eclectic garden buildings designed by Bateman and Edward Cooke.