Kew Gardens
Overview
Kew Gardens began in 1759 when Princess Augusta created a nine-acre botanic garden beside the royal estate at Kew. Royal collecting, Joseph Banks's worldwide plant networks and the work of professional directors turned it into a national centre for botany, plant exchange and economic crops. Its glasshouses, designed landscape, living collections, herbarium and later seed work unite a public garden with scientific research, while its history also records how plant collecting was tied to British exploration and empire.
What this place is
Kew is a large botanic garden and scientific institution beside the Thames. Its landscape contains living plant collections, woods, lawns, lakes, formal gardens, laboratories and historic buildings. Princess Augusta founded a nine-acre botanic garden in 1759, and William Chambers built garden structures including the Great Pagoda in 1762. George III later united the Kew and Richmond estates. In 1840 the Crown transferred the gardens to government control, establishing their modern public and national scientific role under the first official director, William Hooker.
People and events
Princess Augusta and her adviser Lord Bute began the scientific garden. Joseph Banks, who collected on James Cook's voyage, later guided Kew informally and built networks that sent collectors such as Francis Masson overseas. William and Joseph Hooker expanded the gardens, herbarium and research after 1840. Architects and engineers created major glasshouses for plants that could not live outdoors in Britain. Gardeners, plant hunters, artists and scientists recorded and cultivated material from across the world, often through routes made possible by the British Empire.
How it was used
Kew identified, named, grew and exchanged plants, trained gardeners and advised on crops, forestry, medicines and useful plant products. It also moved economically important species between colonies, work that brought new crops and knowledge but could serve imperial control and commercial extraction. Public visitors used the designed walks and glasshouses, while researchers relied on preserved specimens, books, drawings and living collections. Modern work continues in plant and fungal science, conservation and seed banking, linking the historic garden to the worldwide loss of habitats and species.
What survives
The landscape keeps major parts of its eighteenth- and nineteenth-century design, including the Great Pagoda, long views, lakes and ornamental buildings. Decimus Burton and Richard Turner's Palm House and the later Temperate House survive as outstanding iron-and-glass structures. The gardens retain large living collections and the Herbarium's preserved specimens, while later laboratories and visitor buildings show continued growth. Kew and its buildings were made a World Heritage Site in 2003 because science, landscape design and architecture remain joined in one working place.
Why it mattered
Kew helped make the study of plants a public, organised and worldwide undertaking. Its records and specimens allow present researchers to compare plants across centuries, and its living collections helped spread both ornamental and economically useful species. The same story requires care because collecting and crop transfer were often bound to colonial power. Kew matters today not only for rare buildings or beautiful planting, but because its accumulated evidence can help explain and protect plant life under rapid environmental change.
History checked 15 August 2026 against the named sources below.
A heritage record does not grant access or permission to enter, climb, collect or disturb anything. Check current paths, ownership, opening arrangements and protection before visiting.