Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
Splendour in the glass
A £41m facelift of the largest Victorian glasshouse in the world, at Kew, has restored it to its former glory
Just £10,000 of government money, a relatively paltry sum, was sanctioned in 1859 for building the Temperate House at Kew, because Sir Joseph Paxton – influential gardener, architect and MP – was worried it might outshine his own Crystal Palace.
He must be spinning in his grave now that the largest Victorian glasshouse in the world, which was completed in 1863, has re-opened after a five-year restoration marking its 155th anniversary, costing £41 million. For the Temperate House – previously a monument of rusty, decayed splendour – has emerged looking magnificent, a horticultural Crystal Palace indeed.
Twice the size of Kew’s Palm House, for five years it was hidden under 180km of scaffolding, enough to stretch the length of the M25. And the entire construction was shrouded under a tent large enough to cover three Boeing 747s. More than 69,000 separate bits and bobs, from immense rafters to historic statues and urns, were removed and repaired off-site, then reinstalled.
But what became of the collection of rare and exotic plants, such as the bird of paradise flower, Strelitzia reginae, while all this was happening? Some long-cherished specimens, such as tree ferns, had been at Kew since the glasshouse first opened, or even longer. More than 500 of the plants were removed to a temporary nursery. Then there was Wood’s cycad, the rarest plant housed at Kew, extinct in the wild, that had been there since 1899: it is 2.5m high and the crown is 3.6m across. ‘That was fun to move!’ recalls lead horticulturist Scott Taylor. ‘It’s massive. Then you can add another metre for the root- ball. But with lots of strong people, we were able to carry it out on its side.’
One plant that had to be sacrificed was the magnificent Chilean wine palm – possibly the tallest greenhouse plant in the world.
‘It was right up in the roof,’ Scott explains. ‘We thought long and hard about what to do with it. But it was 20m tall and probably weighed about 50 tonnes... and the doors are pedestrian-sized, about 3m high. So that was never going to work. There was no safe way to tip it on its side – it would have taken a huge crane to do it, and no guarantee it would survive. It had been here since 1863 but seed was saved from it and it’s been replaced with younger plants that’ll go on for another 150 years.’ The historic palm was composted.
Other plants were remarkably resilient to having the builders in. ‘One big guy – a Chinese fan palm, Livistona chinensis – was wrapped up in a white tent,’ says Temperate House apprentice John Myers. At 35, he’s their oldest apprentice, a career changer who used to work in recruitment. ‘We unwrapped it last year when the glass went back in – and you can see new growth.’
Re-planting started last September, with the construction team still on site. What a task – and where to begin? ‘I didn’t make a planting plan,’ Scott Taylor admits. ‘ There are 10,000 plants, 1,500 different species. We spaced them out – stood back – had a look, then jiggled it around by eye.’
If you’re wondering how deep the soil goes... it’s a long way down. The Temperate House sits on a plinth on gravelly soil that was excavated – dug by hand, by the Army – when legendary garden designer Capability Brown created the Kew Gardens lake. The topsoil has been replaced to a depth of 50cm with a compost of loam, bark, sand and grit that won’t sink. ‘That was the biggest item on the horticultural budget,’ says Scott, who suffered agonies lest the builders should trample his beds. ‘How do you explain that it cost £100 a cubic metre? Dirt is dirt to a builder. But I guess all paving is just paving to me!’
When the Temperate House first opened, it was to showcase economically important plants such as quinine and tea, and plants from outposts of the Empire, including Australia, New Zealand and the South African Cape. Today, the emphasis is on plants that highlight the scientific work that happens behind the scenes at Kew, and global challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss and food security. Plants include Taxus wallichiana, or Himalayan yew, now endangered after being illegally exploited as a source of the anti-cancer drug paclitaxel, and the aforementioned Wood’s cycad, Encephalartos woodii – dubbed the loneliest plant in the world, as only one has ever been found in the wild, on the edge of South Africa’s Ngoye Forest in 1895. Today, all existing specimens of it, including Kew’s, are clones of that one plant and all are male, so the quest for a female, needed for reproduction, continues.
In a few years, the Temperate House will be a jungle once more. But for now, with sun streaming in, there’s space and light to marvel at its elegance. Scott Taylor won’t be resting on his laurels, however. His next project will be the restoration of the tropical Palm House. ‘I can’t sit still and watch the plants grow,’ he says. ‘I celebrate, but then it’s on to the next thing.’