The Bluecoat Garden Explore our Collections
The leafy enclosed quadrangle at Bluecoat has been different things over the last three centuries, including a forecourt opening onto College Lane, a herb garden, a school playground and, in the early 20th century, an outdoor extension for the parties held by the Sandon Studios Society, the arts group at the centre of Bluecoat's artistic and social life. For one of their parties, they constructed a makeshift pond there. The space also housed air raid shelters during the Second World War and was a yard for the sculptors who worked in studios surrounding it. Its history as a garden starts when one of the artists in the building, the sculptor Herbert Tyson Smith, started to landscape it, earning him the nickname 'Capability Smith'.
This collection offers a selection of images, mainly from the 1980s and 90s, showing how the garden has changed and how it has been used - as a place to meet and relax, for music and other performances, for workshops and as a site for outdoor sculpture exhibitions.
Do you have memories of the garden, or images that you'd like to share with us? If so, go to the My Bluecoat Stories page.

1930
Artist in the Bluecoat yard, holding a maquette for a traffic pylon sculpture

1940
Bluecoat garden, with stone sculptures

1945
C. Neville Bertram, untitled wood engraving showing the bomb-damaged Bluecoat and garden

1958
Curved wall of Bluecoat's central block from the quadrangle

1975
Liverpool Polytechnic students' sculpture exhibition, Bluecoat garden

1977
Bluecoat Society of Arts anniversary plaque at the garden entrance

1990
Aerial view of Bluecoat garden

1980
Artist's studio overlooking the Bluecoat garden

1982
The Bluecoat caretaker's flat, from the garden

1983
Bluecoat garden, with caretaker's flat in background

1984
Sculpture in a Garden exhibition

1984
Bluecoat gardener, Brenda Evans, in the garden

1984
Sculpture in a Garden exhibition

1984
Sculpture in a Garden exhibition

1985
Keir Smith at work in the Bluecoat garden

1985
Sculpture in a Garden

1985
Bluecoat garden, winter

1988
Sculpture in a Garden

1988
Nigel Prince, Bluecoat garden exhibition

1988
Rod Bugg installation in the Bluecoat garden

2000
Amy May Caswell working in the Bluecoat garden

2000
Evening in the Bluecoat garden

1990
Asian Voices Asian Lives performance in the Bluecoat garden

1997
Wagogo in the Bluecoat garden

1999
Children's art workshop in the garden

1995
Juginder Lamba sculpture in the Bluecoat garden

1994
The Bluecoat garden

1994
Summer in the City

1992
Juginder Lamba's The Cry in the Bluecoat garden, Trophies of Empire exhibition

1991
Eilis O'Connell, sculpture in the Bluecoat garden

1991
Jill Randall sculpture, Bluecoat garden

1990
Andrew McDonald, Arch

1989
Robin Blackledge, performance in the garden

1989
Gary Perkins' installation on the Bluecoat roof

1987
Princess Margaret visiting Bluecoat

1988
Diane Gorvin's sculpture in the Bluecoat garden

1989
Chris Jensen's installation in the Bluecoat garden

2008
The re-landscaped Bluecoat garden

2008
The re-landscaped Bluecoat garden

1990
Bluecoat's 'secret garden'

2011
Light Night in the Bluecoat garden

2015
Above the Beaten Track in the Bluecoat garden

2004