Hello, and welcome to Kew Gardens. Kew Gardens is a unique place in that we have over 260 years of history, world-class science and breath-taking natural beauty all within the gardens. We were founded in 1759 and since then we have become a unesco world heritage site and the gardens contain one of the largest collections of living plants in the world.
Our main attractions, we have the temperate house that is the largest surviving Victorian glass house in the world and it was recently restored in 2018 to its former glory - we often refer to it, or liken it to a cathedral of glass just because the scale and magnificence of the structure itself, but also inside it contains around 150 species of plants and a lot of those are endangered or threatened in the wild, so it's also important from a conservation perspective and as you tour the glass house you can also read up about what our scientists are doing to help protect those.
We also have the Palm House which is one of our more iconic glasshouses, which you'll probably recognise from various images of Kew and that contains, obviously, our tropical collection of plants many of which are imported from, again, a conservation or medicinal perspective and really, walking there transports you to the heart of the rainforest so it's a really incredible experience to have this close to central London. We also have some of the more natural beauty, the great broad walk borders - which is the longest double herbaceous border in the world, which looks absolutely stunning all the way from spring all the way to autumn and is full of beautiful scents and colours from all the planting there.
We also have The Hive, which came to us in 2016. It's a really beautiful structure which takes as a beehive as its inspiration and it is there to highlight the plight of the honeybee and how important it is to the future of the planet, surrounded by a beautiful wildflower meadow which is the ?? environment way with thriving populations of honeybees and it reacts to the motion of the bees within a hive contained in Kew. So the more active they are, the more it will vibrate and ??? come to life, so it's a lovely immersive experience.
We also have the great pagoda within the gardens, which was designed by Sir William Chambers and completed in 1762 and that's located next to our beautiful Japanese gardens, so it really is a very interesting place to visit. As you can see here, we also have the Kew explorer that does a circuit of the gardens in about 45 minutes and we take in all of the highlights with guided commentary, so you can discover a bit more of the gardens with leisure. There is something here for everyone, we have a whole series of events taking place within the gardens throughout the year - we are open everyday apart from the 24th and the 25th of December. If you'd like to find out more, please do visit us on www.kew.org, and we look forward to seeing you in the gardens!
