Victorian Walled Garden Glasshouses, Quex Gardens

The present design of the gardens at Quex shows strong Regency, Victorian and Edwardian influences. The official website dates the walled garden to the 1840s and describes it as a Victorian kitchen garden that later served as a market garden. James Cornford became head gardener there in 1883, and about twenty gardeners were employed by 1902.

The walled-garden glasshouses had a complete upgrade from the late 1890s. The glasshouses seen today were made by two notable manufacturers, Weeks of Chelsea and Mackenzie & Moncur. The glasshouses need constant care. The Winter Garden has been restored and now serves as a hospitality and activity space, and the Thanet tourism site announces a project to renovate the greenhouses.

The walled garden brings together several kinds of glasshouse: a shade house serving as a fernery, a sunken cucumber pit, a display stove house and, against the south-facing wall, a continuous run of three vine houses and two orchid houses. The official website states that the glasshouses seen today came from the workshops of Weeks of Chelsea and Mackenzie & Moncur, and that the Winter Garden, now a hospitality space, links the walled garden to the main lawns by way of the glasshouses.

A 2009 photograph caption describes a Victorian lean-to greenhouse against the back wall of the garden.

According to the National Garden Scheme, the walled garden holds tender exotics, fruit trees, cacti, succulents and pelargoniums; it has a cucumber house, long glasshouses and a cactus house. Quex's own website adds that seasonal fruit and vegetables are grown there along with ornamental plants, and that the aim is to make the space productive again with modern and heritage varieties.

Photographs uploaded to Wikimedia Commons show an aeonium and an amaryllis of the 'Apple Blossom' variety in the cactus house, and, in the borders of the walled garden, cannas, a hardy banana (Musa basjoo), dahlias, artichokes and espalier apple trees.

The glasshouses are reached through the walled garden, which the house's pleasure garden leads to; the Thanet tourism site invites visitors to explore the greenhouses and the cucumber pit, but refers to the venue for access to the greenhouses. The day ticket covers the gardens, the house and the Powell-Cotton Museum, so glasshouses, animal dioramas and a tour of the house can be combined. The gardens open from mid-February to the end of October, on certain days of the week only. On site: an Edwardian herbaceous border against the south wall of the walled garden, a pond with listed statues, a 26-metre well discovered in 2013 and a woodland walk.