Kiwi Roaming

The Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew is over in the south west near Richmond, so another travel adventure for us to get there. The entry fee isn’t cheap £24 or £27 per person including a donation to the trust who run the gardens.

The history of Kew is interesting, once two royal gardens which have contained various grand houses over the years, now joined into a public space. Still standing is the Kew Palace, its kitchen buildings (which are huge) and housekeepers cottage, historic glasshouses alongside newer glasshouses and various temples, sheds, sundials and other sculptures owned by various kings and queens.

We had a lovely afternoon here. We picked up Tesco Express meal deals for lunch after hopping off the train so we could picnic in the gardens watching the ducks and geese on the lake. Lunch over we headed up the Treetop Walkway, this structure is 18m high and quite short, very geared for children with lovely information spots at small child height. Most of the trees are chestnuts or oak in this area but it’s very cool seeing different vista’s from this height and the interesting foliage. You can also see the glasshouses from above.

Unlike NZ gardens there isn’t much birdsong at all, there are plenty of pigeons, ducks, swans, geese and a few other smaller birds, no squirrels which we found curious given they are such a feature in other gardens throughout London. There are many NZ plant species on display as well, alongside other continents with seeds returned by early explorers for the royal glasshouses.

The giant water lily glasshouse was closed for renovations but we saw some decently sized ones in the Princess of Wales Conservatory which was opened by Dianna in 1987. The humidity in there was a bit stifling so we didn’t last long. Amazing water lilies though.

My hay fever was becoming overwhelming even after taking an antihistamine in the morning so I had a wee nap in the sunshine on a park bench while the photographer headed off to photograph the Henry Moore sculpture collection scattered throughout the massive gardens.

The Moore’s sit really well in this landscape, they are so large and can stand alone amongst the old trees and large fields. There are other more modern artworks scattered around – although we overheard a group of women discussion how they didn’t like the “modern look” of Moore’s work.

The property is huge and we spent 4 hours walking around but there was still more to see. We were impressed with how well it’s set out, how many activities there are for small children, the quality of the paths and the wonderful flower beds – which are full of bees, so they must have hives onsite.

The Kew Palace is pretty plain and hasn’t been very well preserved but the history there is interesting to learn about, it was really a summer house used for “mad” King George to convalesce rather than built as a palace. Worth a visit all the same.

So that was Kew.