Last week I wrote about the Kew Village Market that
we stumbled onto when we visited last May. Today I’ll write about the reason we
were in the area in the first place – to see the lovely and impressive Kew
Gardens.
George III and his beloved wife, Charlotte, spent their
summers in Kew Palace, which at the time was set amid acres of farmland, with their
fifteen children. George preferred the country lifestyle to living in the city,
and hired several architects to build structures throughout the park, including
the orangery and the pagoda.
The beautiful Kew Palace was home to both domestic happiness
for the king and his family, and personal unhappiness, as George spent many of
his later years here suffering from mental illness. We loved visiting this
beautiful building. We may actually have enjoyed it with too much
effervescence, as the photo above was taken about two minutes before we were
kicked out of the Palace for going ‘up’ the ‘down’ staircase. (Okay, perhaps we weren’t kicked out, but we were scolded in a British accent, and that felt like
being kicked out.)
Suitably chastened, we repaired to the adjacent Queen’s
Gardens. These immaculate gardens include only plants that were grown in
England as of the seventeenth century, and were an excellent place to lick our
colonial wounds.
Temperate House, currently under restoration, is the largest
Victorian-era greenhouse in the world.
Kew Gardens is so much more than simply a beautiful place to
walk and learn about history. It hosts the most extensive collection of living
plants in the world, with more than 30,000 different varieties. The Gardens are
also home to eight million preserved plant specimens, and well over one million
types of fungi samples.
And I've written before about my family's fascination with peacocks. This was an opportunity to enjoy watching peacocks stroll in the wild, with no annoying Ancient Wonder of the World to distract us.
10 comments:
I live near here! Kew Gardens are so lovely in the summer. Great photo of the peacock too!
How lovely - I lived near Kew Gardens about 20 years ago!!
mary
Gorgeous photos, Beth! Only wonderfully unique people go up the down staircase. :D xo
I've always wanted to visit England. This is another reason to go. Thanks for sharing this.
The garden looks so beautiful.
Gorgeous...I really do hope to get to England one of these days :)
What gorgeous gardens, Beth! When we stayed at one bed and breakfast in Ireland, there were peacocks roaming the grounds. We loved it...though they could get noisy :)
How interesting--history, beauty and conservation all together! And on the subject of peacocks, we had a peacock snatch part of our lunch while visiting Denmark a number of years ago...
Wonderful pictures! I have such fond memories of Kew Gardens! I used to go there in late winter to see stretches and stretches of daffodils, crocuses and snowdrops; and in April to see the magnolia trees; and then again in August for the asphodels in one of the secluded gardens. This is where my everlasting love affair with cranberries and all things berry began. It's one of the few urban places where you can really appreciate the beauty of each passing season.
But now I can't help but feel that they've spoiled the tranquility and views of the gardens with all their commercial development schemes and their treetop walkway and their summer concerts. Hardly a suitable environment for wild life! However, I'm glad you enjoyed your visit.
Beautiful, and it looks like you were there on a lovely day. I was there years ago, but I don't recall the palace. Guess I need to go back!
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