Palm House

Built in two stages between 1839 and 1852 in Belfast's Botanic Gardens, the Palm House was designed by architect Charles Lanyon and built by Dublin ironmaster Richard Turner, who would go on a few years later to build the celebrated Palm House at Kew. Its central cast-iron and glass dome, added in 1852, makes it one of the world's oldest surviving examples of a curvilinear glasshouse, a technique then booming for bending metal into organic shapes. The building rises to about twelve meters and holds roughly 8,000 panes of glass. A tradition kept up by staff every year: in spring, the top of the dome is whitewashed to protect the plants from sunburn, a veil removed in autumn to let the exotic blooms reappear. Free and open to the public, it remains one of Northern Ireland's botanical treasures.