Place
Temperate House
The world's largest surviving Victorian glasshouse stands in the southeast of Kew Gardens, a vast 1860 building sheltering a plant collection that includes the towering Chilean wine palm.
The story
Kew's Temperate House was built in 1860 and is the largest Victorian glasshouse that survives anywhere in the world. It covers 4,880 square metres in the southeast of Kew Gardens, a scale that makes the architecture itself as much of a sight as anything growing inside it. The glasshouse was closed for a long stretch of vital restoration work, finishing in 2018. Its interior usually houses a remarkable collection of plants, and the Chilean wine palm stands out among them, towering high beneath the glass. Together, the building and its planting make it one of the defining landmarks of Kew.
