Kew Gardens

Kew Gardens is a famous botanic garden in southwest London. It has one of the largest and most diverse collections of plants and fungi in the world. It was founded in 1759 and now cares for many different types of plants.

The gardens cover a large area and include beautiful gardens and special botanical glasshouses. Many buildings and structures at Kew Gardens are protected because they are important to history.

Kew Gardens is managed by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. It helps people learn about plants. It is also a popular place for visitors and a World Heritage Site.

History

Kew Gardens began in 1759 as a small garden at Kew Park. Over time, it grew into one of the world's largest and most important places for plants and fungi. Many royal families lived nearby, which helped shape the gardens. Famous structures like the Great Pagoda and the Palm House were built there.

The gardens became a national botanical garden in 1840. They now cover a large area and include special glasshouses like the Temperate House, which is the largest from the Victorian era. In 2003, UNESCO named Kew Gardens a World Heritage Site. Some trees there, known as the 'Five Lions,' have been growing since the gardens began.

Features

Treetop walkway

A canopy walkway opened in 2008. It lets visitors walk 200 metres above the ground in a woodland area. Visitors can use stairs and a lift to go up and down. The walkway floor is made of metal and moves with the wind. It was designed by David Marks.

Lake Crossing

The Lake Crossing bridge opened in May 2006. It crosses a lake and was designed by Buro Happold and John Pawson. The bridge has a curve of black granite, with bronze sides.

The bridge is part of a path that encourages visitors to explore more of the gardens. It connects two art galleries through several garden areas.

The Hive

The Hive opened in 2016. It shows the life of bees. Standing 17 metres tall, it is made from many aluminium pieces shaped like a honeycomb. It was designed by artist Wolfgang Buttress.

Vehicular tour

Kew Explorer is a service that goes around the gardens. It uses two electric road trains. The driver gives a commentary, and there are several stops.

Compost heap

Kew has a big compost heap made from garden waste and manure. The compost is used in the gardens.

Guided walks

Trained volunteers lead tours of the gardens daily.

Plant houses

Alpine House

The Davies Alpine House opened in 2006. It has a roof that reaches 10 metres high to let in air. The house has blinds to stop the plants from getting too hot. The glass lets in light. The house is for alpine plants.

Nash Conservatory

This building was moved to Kew in 1836. It is now used for exhibitions and events.

Orangery

The Orangery was finished in 1761. It is now used as a restaurant.

Palm House

The Palm House was built between 1844 and 1848. It has a high central area for palm trees. It was originally heated by coal.

Princess of Wales Conservatory

The Princess of Wales Conservatory opened in 1987. It has ten zones for different climates. It covers a large area.

The Temperate House

The Temperate House reopened in 2018. It is one of the largest glass structures from the Victorian era. It has plants from temperate regions.

Waterlily House

The Waterlily House is the hottest and most humid house at Kew. It has a large pond with water lilies. It closes in winter.

The Davies Exploration House

It opened in 1952.

Bonsai House

The Bonsai House shows Kew’s bonsai collection.

Former plant houses

Some plant houses from 1974 are no longer there.

Ornamental buildings

Great Pagoda

The Great Pagoda was built in 1762. It is 50 metres tall. The Pagoda was closed for many years but reopened in 2006.

Japanese Gateway (Chokushi-Mon)

The Chokushi-Mon was built for an exhibition in 1910 and moved to Kew in 1911.

Minka House

Kew got a Japanese wooden house called a minka. It was built around 1900.

Queen Charlotte's Cottage

This cottage was built before 1771 for Queen Charlotte. It is open to the public in the summer.

King William's Temple

It was built in 1837.

Temple of Aeolus

It was built in 1845.

Temple of Arethusa

It was built in 1758.

Temple of Bellona

It was built in 1760.

The Ruined Arch

It was built in 1759–60.

Ice House

The Ice House is from the early 18th century.

Temple of the Sun

It was destroyed in a storm in 1916.

Kew Palace

Kew Palace is the smallest of the British royal palaces. It was built around 1631. It was later bought by George III.

The building reopened to the public in 2006.

Galleries and museums

Admission to the galleries and museum is free after paying to enter the gardens.

Shirley Sherwood Gallery

The Shirley Sherwood Gallery opened in 2008. It shows paintings from Kew’s collections. The paintings change every six months.

Museum No. 1

This building was designed by Decimus Burton and opened in 1857. It has collections of tools, clothing, and medicines.

Marianne North Gallery

The Marianne North Gallery was built in the 1880s. It shows paintings by Marianne North.

Exhibitions

In 2017, an exhibition showed many preserved plants and flowers.

Dale Chihuly had an exhibition in 2019.

Exhibitions at the Shirley Sherwood gallery have included shows about plants and trees.

The largest exhibition of Henry Moore’s work is being shown at Kew Gardens between 2026 and January 2027.

Science

Plant collections

Kew Gardens has many special collections of living plants. These include gardens for alpine and rock plants, water plants, trees, dry-climate plants, orchids, palms, and grasses. The Aquatic Garden, near the Jodrell laboratory, has a big pool for water lilies and smaller pools for other water plants. The Bonsai trees are kept in a special greenhouse. The dry-climate plants, including cacti, are in several warm houses. The Carnivorous Plant collection is in the Princess of Wales Conservatory. The Grass Garden shows many kinds of grasses. The Orchid Collection changes often so visitors can see flowering plants. The Rock Garden has many different plants from around the world.

Herbarium

Main article: Kew Herbarium

The Kew Herbarium is one of the largest in the world, with about 7 million pressed plant specimens. These help scientists study plants from all over the world, especially from tropical areas. The herbarium gets about 30,000 new specimens each year from work with scientists around the world. Many of these specimens have been turned into digital images and can be seen online by anyone. The herbarium’s special code is K, used when scientists talk about specimens kept there.

Kew Gardens also has a collection of dried fungi specimens, a bank of plant DNA, and a seed bank. The fungarium holds around 1.25 million dried fungus samples.

Library and Archives

The Library & Archives at Kew have over half a million items, including books, drawings, photos, letters, and maps about plants. These collections are kept in the Herbarium building. An agreement from 1962 means the collection does not repeat items from the Natural History Museum in London, which focuses on plants from Europe and North America.

Forensic horticulture

Kew helps police forces around the world by studying plant material that might be important clues in investigations.

Economic Botany

The Sustainable Uses of Plants Group studies how plants are used in the United Kingdom and in dry areas of the world.

Jodrell Laboratory

The Jodrell Laboratory was named after a supporter of science, Thomas J. Phillips Jodrell. It was set up in 1876 by Kew’s Director Joseph Dalton Hooker and his helper William Turner Thiselton-Dyer. It was one of the first labs in the world not connected to a university. The lab has been expanded several times, with a major addition called the Wolfson Wing added in 2006.

Many famous scientists have worked at the Jodrell Laboratory, including Dukinfield Henry Scott. Other researchers included botanists, cell biologists, marine biologists, physiologists, and fossil plant experts.

The Jodrell Laboratory has helped start other important research places, such as the Laboratory of Plant Pathology in Harpenden in 1920, the Imperial Bureau of Mycology in Kew in 1930, and the Millennium Seed Bank, which moved to Kew’s Wakehurst Place in 1993.

Achievements

In 2009, scientists at Kew Gardens saved the world’s smallest water-lily, Nymphaea thermarum, by growing it from seed. In 2022, they discovered a new kind of Victoria waterlily called Victoria boliviana that had been growing at the Gardens for over 170 years.

Other features

Kew Gardens has its own small police team called the Kew Constabulary. They help keep the gardens safe.

There are places to eat and drink at Kew, such as The Orangery and the Pavilion Bar and Grill.

In 2024, a new building called the Irrigation Pump House was built. It helps water the gardens and looks like a fallen leaf from above. It stores water underground to help keep the plants healthy.

Main article: Kew Constabulary

Media

Kew Gardens has been shown in many films, shows, and other media. In 1942, a short color film called World Garden was made by cinematographer Geoffrey Unsworth. A popular show named A Year at Kew came out in 2005, showing life at the gardens. Three more shows followed in 2007.

Other well-known shows include a 2009 BBC show called Cruickshank on Kew: The Garden That Changed the World, by Dan Cruickshank, which looks at Kew Gardens' history. In 2012, David Attenborough made Kingdom of Plants 3D. The video game Sherlock Holmes: Crimes & Punishments from 2014 has an episode called "The Kew Gardens Drama." Author Virginia Woolf also wrote a short story named "Kew Gardens" in 1921.

Access and transport

Kew Gardens has four gates for visitors: the Elizabeth Gate at the west end of Kew Green, the Brentford Gate near the River Thames, the Victoria Gate (named after Queen Victoria) on Kew Road, and the Lion Gate, also on Kew Road.

The closest train station is Kew Gardens station, which opened in 1869. It has London Underground and London Overground trains. There are also bus stops nearby and a pier for river services in the summer. Cycle racks are available at some entrances, and there is a car park outside the Brentford Gate.