Clay subsoil spelt doom for Percy Thrower's magnificent Magnolias

And we can take a nostalgic peek at Percy's showpiece thanks to a gentleman who has been digitising some old 35mm colour slides which have included photographic memories of his own trip to see Percy's handiwork over 50 years ago.

"I was very sad to discover that Percy Thrower’s home near Shrewsbury is now demolished," he said. 

"He opened the grounds to the public at times. The Magnolias was a modern substantial bungalow with beautiful gardens in a glorious setting that I saw in the early 1970s and now it’s all gone. Fortunately, I took a couple of photos on 35mm colour slides. I'm not local myself. I  was there with my parents when also calling on a friend nearby. I took the shots and stored the slides for over 50 years.

"From what I’ve heard, Percy was a real gentleman."

Our contributor, who is from Worcestershire, prefers not to be named.

Percy was the first TV gardener to become a household name. With his avuncular manner, trademark pipe, and depth of knowledge about his craft, viewers took to him. He shaped the look of Shrewsbury and did much to put it on the international floral map.

The Magnolias, near Bomere Heath, was built in 1963 to a design from Percy and his wife Connie. It gave him a garden of about one and a half acres to play with and he created his own personal vision of what a garden should be like, opening it to the public in 1966.

It was also to play a starring role in his television story as the advent of colour television in the 1960s mean that the BBC's Gardeners' World needed to find something more convincing than a studio garden, and it was not long before the Outside Broadcast Unit, complete with crew of around 30 people, was descending on The Magnolias. 

Percy was a television natural, working without a script. In the 1970s he wrote a guidebook to the programme which included a map of The Magnolias so viewers could follow his progress around the garden during the broadcast.

Sadly, according to the Gardens Trust, almost none of the vintage episodes were kept and the little footage that does survive has no  sound.

He was famously dropped from the BBC because of the Beeb's strict rules about commercial activities, but continued to record programmes from the garden until shortly before his death.

Percy had come to Shropshire in 1946, serving as Shrewsbury's parks superintendent to 1974. His name was synonymous with Shrewsbury Flower Show where not only was he one of the leading organisers, but he won the supreme award five consecutive times from 1979 to 1983. He was horticultural adviser to Shropshire Horticultural Society for over 40 years and then its chairman.

His broadcasting break came in about 1947 with a 10-minute spot on a radio programme called Country Calendar and his first appearance on television was in 1951.

As for The Magnolias, shallow foundations on clay soils which shrank led to movement in some of the exterior walls and cracks appearing above ground level. 

Despite all the memories associated with the property, fixing the problems could only be achieved with measures so radical that little would have been left of the original Magnolias.

In October 2013 planning permission was given to demolish the property and build a new one, and as a result Percy's old home was knocked down the following year.