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Temperate House, Kew Gardens

Decimus Burton buildingsRoyal Botanic Gardens, KewVictorian architecture in England
Kew Gardens Temperate House Sept 2008
Kew Gardens Temperate House Sept 2008

The Temperate House, opened in May 1863, is a Grade I-listed showhouse for the largest plants in Kew Royal Botanic Gardens. Rectangular, with pitched roofs, its pillars support wrought-iron ribs. Decimus Burton and Irish engineer, Richard Turner, the designers, gave the House a mix of decorative motifs, finials, pediments, acanthus leaf capitals, Coade stone urns and statues. According to Greg Redwood, Kew's head of glasshouses, "The effect is similar to the contemporary iron pier pavilions of Eugenius Birch." Although construction began in 1860, it would not be completed until 1899. It was positioned to be the first feature visitors saw as they entered the gates with the anticipated coming of the first railway station at Kew expected to be at the end of the adjacent avenue. However, Kew Gardens rail station was built 500 yards to the north, leaving the glasshouse "somewhat stranded in the landscape". In 2011 Kew launched a £15m public appeal to address necessary repairs to the Temperate House. An early exercise in cast- and wrought-iron and glass construction, the building is structurally sound but the Victorians hid utilitarian features like drainpipes inside the stone columns. Water round the edge of the building led to rust on the iron to push against the masonry which was falling away. Decorative features made of wood were rotting. It last underwent a major restoration in the early 1980s. The building was restored during 2014–15 by Donald Insall Associates, based on their conservation management plan.There is a viewing gallery in the central section from which visitors are able to look down on that part of the collection. It was re-opened to the public in May 2018.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Temperate House, Kew Gardens (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Temperate House, Kew Gardens
Lawn Crescent, London North Sheen (London Borough of Richmond upon Thames)

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N 51.474664 ° E -0.29547 °
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Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

Lawn Crescent
TW9 3NP London, North Sheen (London Borough of Richmond upon Thames)
England, United Kingdom
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Kew Gardens Temperate House Sept 2008
Kew Gardens Temperate House Sept 2008
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Kew Gardens
Kew Gardens

Kew Gardens is a botanic garden in southwest London that houses the "largest and most diverse botanical and mycological collections in the world". Founded in 1840, from the exotic garden at Kew Park, its living collections include some of the 27,000 taxa curated by Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, while the herbarium, one of the largest in the world, has over 8.5 million preserved plant and fungal specimens. The library contains more than 750,000 volumes, and the illustrations collection contains more than 175,000 prints and drawings of plants. It is one of London's top tourist attractions and is a World Heritage Site.Kew Gardens, together with the botanic gardens at Wakehurst in Sussex, are managed by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, an internationally important botanical research and education institution that employs over 1,100 staff and is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.The Kew site, which has been dated as formally starting in 1759, although it can be traced back to the exotic garden at Kew Park, formed by Henry, Lord Capell of Tewkesbury, consists of 132 hectares (330 acres) of gardens and botanical glasshouses, four Grade I listed buildings, and 36 Grade II listed structures, all set in an internationally significant landscape. It is listed Grade I on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.Kew Gardens has its own police force, Kew Constabulary, which has been in operation since 1845.

Kew
Kew

Kew () is a district in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Its population at the 2011 census was 11,436. Kew is the location of the Royal Botanic Gardens ("Kew Gardens"), now a World Heritage Site, which includes Kew Palace. Kew is also the home of important historical documents such as Domesday Book, which is held at The National Archives. Julius Caesar may have forded the Thames at Kew in 54 BC during the Gallic Wars. Successive Tudor, Stuart and Georgian monarchs maintained links with Kew. During the French Revolution, many refugees established themselves there and it was the home of several artists in the 18th and 19th centuries. Since 1965 Kew has incorporated the former area of North Sheen which includes St Philip and All Saints, the first barn church consecrated in England. It is now in a combined Church of England parish with St Luke's Church, Kew. Today, Kew is an expensive residential area because of its suburban hallmarks. Among these are sports-and-leisure open spaces, schools, transport links, architecture, restaurants, no high-rise buildings, modest road sizes, trees and gardens. Most of Kew developed in the late 19th century, following the arrival of the District line of the London Underground. Further development took place in the 1920s and 1930s when new houses were built on the market gardens of North Sheen and in the first decade of the 21st century when considerably more river-fronting flats and houses were constructed by the Thames on land formerly owned by Thames Water.