Wavertree Botanic Gardens is an example of a mid 19th century public park. It incorporates an earlier walled botanic garden, founded by William Roscoe as Liverpool Botanic Garden and relocated from land near Mount Pleasant in the 1830s. The gardens include the Grade II curator's lodge built between 1836-1837.
On 20 November 1940 a stray German bomb caused all the glass in the botanic glasshouse to be broken, the plants inside were shredded.
As it was winter, everyone helped remove the surviving plants into nearby private glasshouses until the war ended. The Orchids were located at Sudley House. The botanic glasshouse was never reinstated after the war, but due to the major efforts by Percy Conn, the new Superintendent of Liverpool Parks, who had the vision to revive the work of William Roscoe & John Shepherd (horticulturalist) in the Mount Pleasant days, the Liverpool Botanic Garden arose anew in the Harthill Estate grounds at Calderstones Park.
On 22 August 2013 the botanic park and gardens were listed at Grade II* in the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. In 1886 the International Exhibition of Navigation, Commerce and Industry was held here.