The Palm House at Kew: a New Beginning

r99rl MINTER:THE PALM HOUSEKEW Principes,3S(l),I991, pp. 9-18 The Palm House at Kew: A New Beginning Sun MINrnn Royal Botanic Gardens, Keu, Richmond, Surrey TVg 3AB, UK The Palm House at the Royal Botanic thought fitting that such a garden should Gardens, Kew, probably the most famous have a prestigious glasshousetall enough 'principes' glasshouseof palms in the world, has just to house tree palms, the of the undergonea restoration costing nearly t9 plant kingdom, the cultivation of which was million. Replantingwas completedlast year limited at that date to the gentry because and I 67 speciesof palm are now displayed of the enormous cost of the glasshouses in a microcosm of the palm-rich (but very required to raise palms to maturity. There threatened) rainforests of the three con- was considerablerivalry over the culture tinents. of palms, over 200 speciesof which were This article will show something of the made available in England via the collec- development of palm collections in Vic- tion of ConradLoddiges's Hackney Botanic torian England, the extraordinary building Nursery in Mare Street, Hackney, East spawned at Kew by the desire to grow London. Kew's collection was only rivalled palms, and detail the recent restoration by that of Hermann Wendland at Herren- and replanting. hausen in Germany. At the beginning of the nineteenth cen- Kew's Palm House was the result of a tury there were significant advances in complex collaboration between the archi- materials used in glasshousedesign; par- tect Decimus Burton and the Irish iron- alleling this there was an increase in the founder, RichardTurnero between the years complexity of plant collections with the lB44 and 1848. Built, at Burton's insis- intloduction of palms. The palm collection tence, next to a lake to mirror its outline at Kew grew greatly during its Victorian (Figs. l, 5), it came to occupy a central heyday. According to John Smith, the first position at Kew with wide treelined ave- Curator, the original collection of palms in nues designedby William Andrews Nes- England was that of Lord Petre at Thorn- field radiating from it. don Hall, Essex, who grew them in soil The most significantfeature of the Palm beds under a house 30 feet high in the House at Kew is that it is built of iron. It I730's and 1740's. Six palm specieswere represents a milestone in the history of "age grown at Kew in 1768, l0 by 1787 and engineering during the Victorian of 20 in 1813. The plants were plungedin iron" and in the applicationof the material beds of bark into which the roots grew as to glazed structures for the growing of their tubs decayed.By 1830 the collection plants. The novelty of the Palm House, had grown to 40 species.In 1843 the however, is not only that it is iron but also Gardens were expanded from 20 to 65 that it is curved. Sir Gordon Mackenzie "the acres under Sir William Jackson Hooker, had suggestedin l8l5 that form of Director, which eflectively made Kew a glass roofs, best calculated for the admis- national botanic garden as well as one sion of the sun's rays is a hemispherical "has enjoying many royal connections. It was figure" which already given rise to PRINCIPES lVoL. 35 l. The curved shape of the Palm House is fronted by a parterre and a sizeablelake. 2. The dismantled Palm House being surveyed for re-erection in February 1987. The use of wrought iron for the supporting ribs allowed for the planting space to be unobstructed by columns. leell MINTER: THE PALM HOUSEKEW ll many beautiful curvilinear structures." up nothing but iron was to be seenin every Loudon, who wrote prolifically on garden- direction in the form of rnassiveiron raf- ing matters, gave a great impetus to the ters, girders, galleries,pillars and staircase, practical development of this thiory by and the hot iron floor on which we stood inventing the rolled wrought iron glazing and the smooth stone shelves and paths bar which could be curved into the cur- round the house had the appbarance of vilinear shape. He was not, however, a somedock-yard smithy or iron railway sta- businessmanand relinquished his patent tion than a hothouseto grow tropical plants rights to the firm of W & D Bailey who in, but there it was, and I was to make became responsiblefor many very attrac- the best ofit, and to be responsiblefor the tive structures. good cultivation of the plants which were The shapeof the Palm House is heir to commencedto be put in." the theories of Mackenzie and the glazrng Smith moved the largest plants into the bar of Loudon as patented by the firm of center transept in September lB4B with Bailey. However, it was the skill of the the help of two engineerswith tackle from "The Irish ironfounder, Richard Turner, who first the Deptford dockyard: first being applied wrought iron to the creation of the large palrns So6al umbraculifera (: such a large glasshousefor palms at Kew. S. rnauritiiformis) from the old palm- His essentialcontribution was to substitute house. One plant weighed 17 tons, the "deck wrought iron beam" used in ship- other not quite so much. They were then building for Burton's proposal of much conveyed on rollers to the Palmhouse, a heavier cast-iron main arches. This was a distanceof nearly Vza mile, and drawn up "first" in the history of building design, the steps of the east center door by a though Turner later claimedhe lost !7,000 windlass.Their leaves occupied the whole on the contract through its use. He used width of the doorway.'o At first he was its greater tensile strength when curved to short ofplants becausethe glasshousesfrom span great widths of unsupported spaceto which the plants were drawn constituted the benefit of the broad crowns of the only a quarter of the floor area of the new palms. So it is not inappropriate that, ever house and not enough palm specieshad since, the househas been compared to the then been introduced to fill it. The wings uptlrrned hull of a graceful liner. Unlike of the Palm Housewere iiritially left empty. the glasshouseat Chatsworth, the Palm Not everything went well for the new House was constructed entirely of metal house. The subterranean boilers flooded and used curved glass rather than the and it was some years before the problem "ridge and furrow" design invented by was solved. The staff found great difficulty Paxton and, at the Curatorossuggestion, with the cast-iron flogr gratings which had it was tinted green. The importance of the been laid in order to improve the circu- building today is that there are no other lation of heat. It did have the horticultural Iarge, curved iron glasshousesleft in the advantage of circulating heat around the UK; it is a masterpiecein iron and glass. plant roots but it committed the staf to Despite the architectural and engineer- growing everything in pots and tubs. Most ing inventiveness, iron glasshouseswere of the more terider tropical economicplants not popular with horticulturists who feared which Kew was keen to show neededhot- glass breakage through the expansion of bed cultivation and for the taller palms to the metal, not to mention the threat of reach the full height of the building some lightning strikes. The Curator freely planting beds were needed. By the winter expressedhis dislike of iron structures and of l859-60 Dr Hooker had arrangedfor his skepticism at being required to grow large beds to go into the center of the "for plants in the Palm House in looking Palm House, so beginning a tradition of I2 PRINCIPES lVoL. 35 bed culture which has continued in later required and apart from a general loss of restorations.By 1882 Kew held 420 spe- thickness throughout. But when a window cies of palm in the Palm House and in the was blown out by wind in the clerestory nurseries. the engineers were also alarmed to find Originally designedto last 100 years, that the pilaster virtually disintegrated.It the housewas in a sorry state of corrosion was therefore obvious that the windows by the 1950's. It was closedto the public were supportingthe roof, not the pilasters. in the autumn of 1952 after the engineer's Apart from the clerestories,the wrought report of August 195 I recommendedthat iron glazingbars were the major cause of the condition of the structure was such concern. Virtually every bar was badly "a that scheme be prepared in the near corroded at the ends and had suffered cor- future for a complete replacementfor the rosion along the length. house." Designswere indeed mooted. One Sincethe Palm Houseis a Grade I listed idea was to replace the house using the building any restorationor repair work had arches which had lined the Mall in central to be governedby the requirementsofthe London for Queen Elizabeth'sCoronation. Department of Ancient Monuments and Another bizarre proposal was to build a Historic Buildings (now English Heritage). new structure over the top of the existing These included keeping as much as pos- house.Given the post-war desirefor things sible of the original fabric and not preju- to reflect a new, modern, erao it is sur- dicing any of the structural engineering prising that the house was not lost alto- principles of the building. However, the gether, but was savedfor us to enjoy. Palm House is not a building in the tra- The actual restoration work carried out ditional senseof the word, it is rather an "normal" was very comprehensivealthough the house engineering structure. With a was neyer emptied and the restoration was building the various philosophiesof res- essentiallyachieved around the plants.

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