Liverpool retro: 13 photos that capture 1984 International Garden Festival from yellow submarine to red dragon

Officially launched by Queen Elizabeth II on May 2 1984, Liverpool’s International Garden Festival saw more than three million visitors descend on Festival Gardens. Taking place for five months, the event was designed to encourage tourism to the city following the Toxteth riots, and was a huge success.

With sixty individual gardens to explore, including Indian and Japanese inspired spaces, as well as beautiful artwork and sculptures, the legacy of the festival lives on forty years later. Notable attractions included a red dragon slide, a huge yellow submarine and a statue of John Lennon.

While the Festival Gardens are home to a beautiful park and oriental garden, which reopened in 2012 following major redevelopment work, other parts of the site of the were left in a terrible state and have been derelict for over thirty-years. Liverpool Council has been working for a number of years to transform the site from landfill to 1,500 brand new homes. A new southern grasslands extension to the Festival Gardens was opened in 2023.

To celebrate the International Garden Festival on its forty year anniversary, we have created a gallery showcasing its stunning floral displays, sculptures, waterfalls and more. Let us know your favourite memories of the event in the comments.