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Great Pagoda, Kew Gardens

1761 establishments in EnglandBuildings and structures completed in 1761Buildings and structures on the River ThamesChinoiserieGrade I listed buildings in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames
Japanese gardens in EnglandKew, LondonPagodas in the United KingdomPrincess Augusta of Saxe-GothaRoyal Botanic Gardens, KewWilliam Chambers buildings
Great Pagoda at Kew Gardens 2
Great Pagoda at Kew Gardens 2

The Great Pagoda at Kew Gardens in southwest London was built in 1761 by Sir William Chambers as a present for Princess Augusta, the founder of the gardens. Constructed of grey brick, the pagoda comprises 10 storeys, totalling 163 ft (50 m) in height, with 253 steps to the viewing gallery. Closed for repairs in 2006, the pagoda was reopened in 2018 following a major programme of restoration. It is a Grade I listed building.The ground floor roof is supported on wooden pillars. The storeys above this have arcaded balconies with Chinese Chippendale railings and curved roofs. The roofs are now of lead although they were originally covered in alternating bands of green and white tiles. The 80 restored dragons surmount each roof. Bridget Cherry, in her London 2: South volume of the Buildings of England series, describes the pagoda as "this supreme example of chinoiserie". A study of 2019, written after the restoration, ranked it as "the most important surviving chinoiserie building in Europe".

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

Great Pagoda, Kew Gardens
Cedar Vista, London Kew (London Borough of Richmond upon Thames)

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N 51.4713 ° E -0.2957 °
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Pagoda

Cedar Vista
TW9 2AZ London, Kew (London Borough of Richmond upon Thames)
England, United Kingdom
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Great Pagoda at Kew Gardens 2
Great Pagoda at Kew Gardens 2
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Temperate House, Kew Gardens
Temperate House, Kew Gardens

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.

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.