David Welch Winter Gardens (Duthie Park)

Duthie Park was given to the city by Elizabeth Crombie Duthie, who bought the land in 1880 and gave it in memory of her uncle and brother; Princess Beatrice opened it on 27 September 1883. The palm house, then called the Winter Garden, came later: the town council resolved to build it in 1899. According to a park history page, it was the work of a Mr Rust, had a frame of St Petersburg redwood, measured 108 by 56 feet and carried a dome 24 feet across and 46 feet high; it cost £1,550.

Severe gales damaged it in 1969 and it was demolished that year. The new complex was built from 1970 in phases over about ten years, and the first houses were opened in April 1970 by Lord Provost Lennox at a quoted cost of £56,000. The Japanese garden, designed by Takashi Sawano, was placed in the central court; sources vary between 1982 and an official opening on 23 June 1987 by the Japanese ambassador. In 2002 (2001 in one source) the complex was renamed the David Welch Winter Gardens, honouring Aberdeen's parks director from 1967 to 1989, who died in 2000. Princess Anne formally opened the refurbished gardens in 2004. Closed during the pandemic, they reopened in October 2021.

The present complex, which replaced the Victorian domed building, consists of about twelve glasshouses and three outdoor areas on roughly two acres, which is why it is counted among the largest covered gardens in Europe. The spaces follow one another as a circuit: fern house, corridor of perfumes, temperate house, tropical house, Arid House, Victorian corridor, carnivorous plant display and Japanese garden, each held at its own climate.

The modern building proceeded in phases, which is why it reads as a sequence of rooms rather than a single hall. The sources consulted do not name the architect of the 1970 scheme. The Japanese garden occupies an inner courtyard. In the grounds, railings salvaged from an old Union Street bridge, decorated with cats taken from Aberdeen's coat of arms, are also of interest.

The Arid House forms the core of the collection: cacti and succulents from Central America, southern Africa, Arabia and Madagascar, including an Echinocactus grusonii more than a century old. The Winter Gardens hold national collections of the genera Aloe and Gasteria, and large specimens shown at the Chelsea Flower Show in 1983-85 won gold medals. The garden is credited with the second-largest collections of giant cacti and of bromeliads in Britain, after the Eden Project.

The tropical house gathers South American bromeliads, orchids, gingers and aroids; the Mediterranean and antipodean area shows eucalyptus, proteas, acacias and olives, while tree ferns and Spanish moss add to the mix. Terrapins and koi live in the pools, and a cactus named Spike has been known for its "talking" since 1980.

The Winter Gardens lie in Duthie Park, in the Ferryhill district of Aberdeen, near the River Dee. They rank among the most visited gardens in Scotland, and the level route suits an unhurried visit of an hour or more, with a café overlooking the koi pond. The park can extend the day, with its bandstand, ornamental ponds and play areas, restored in 2013 with Heritage Lottery Fund support, and the start of the Deeside Way path. The glasshouses can be visited in any season.