Thursday's Child: Kew Gardens, England

Thursday, July 3, 2014


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:

Unknown said...

I live near here! Kew Gardens are so lovely in the summer. Great photo of the peacock too!

Anonymous said...

How lovely - I lived near Kew Gardens about 20 years ago!!
mary

Valerie Gamine said...

Gorgeous photos, Beth! Only wonderfully unique people go up the down staircase. :D xo

Natalie Aguirre said...

I've always wanted to visit England. This is another reason to go. Thanks for sharing this.

Angie's Recipes said...

The garden looks so beautiful.

Jessica Lawson said...

Gorgeous...I really do hope to get to England one of these days :)

Liz That Skinny Chick Can Bake said...

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 :)

Inger @ Art of Natural Living said...

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...

Maria K said...

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.

Anonymous said...

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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