Palm House, Stanmer Park (Sussex Butterfly Gardens)

The Stanmer Palm House belongs to the history of the estate that Brighton Corporation bought in 1947. According to the Bevendean History Project, the municipal nursery then moved into the former walled kitchen garden, laid out by Nicholas Dubois in the 1720s, and for decades supplied the town's parks; it was officially opened in 1957. The Palm House, built in 1952 to house tropical plants, is the work of Hartleys, who gave it the look of a Victorian palm house. Brighton and Hove News (2021) counts it among the only three palm houses of this style built by Hartleys in the 1950s that still stand in England, the other two being at The Living Rainforest and Marwell Zoo; the 2026 texts say simply that it is one of three surviving structures of its kind.

For many years a tropical house, it served in 2021 as an unheated cold house for Plumpton College, which leases it from Brighton and Hove City Council, the owner; the thermometer there has dropped to -11 °C. It has also hosted photo shoots, exhibitions and, in 2013, a live BBC broadcast (Newsnight). When the walled garden reopened in May 2021 as One Garden Brighton, the Palm House was left outside the works: the college launched a 500,000 pound appeal to renew the heating and the glazing.

The project that went ahead is different: Plumpton College teamed up with the founder of Sussex Butterfly Gardens, who already runs the butterfly garden at Middleton Common Farm. After what One Garden Brighton calls an ambitious restoration, the butterfly garden was officially opened on 21 May 2026 and opened to the public on the 23rd.

Brighton and Hove News (2021) describes an ornate greenhouse designed with the look of a Victorian palm house; One Garden Brighton speaks of a 1950s Victorian style, the work of Hartleys. The same article, quoting the fundraising text, says it was originally heated and that, to house exotic plants again, the heating system would have to be refitted and the glass relaid: it is therefore a glazed, heated structure whose glass needed renewing in 2021. A 2014 photograph published on Wikimedia Commons, geolocated at the greenhouse, shows a glazed gable end with a light frame, a tall central part topped by an arched glazed vault, lower sections on either side and a brick base.

Since 2026 the interior has been presented as a climate-controlled, warm and humid environment, kept up both for the insects and for the tropical plants they need in order to feed and breed. The 2021 project foresaw a vaulted walkway with viewing platforms.

According to One Garden Brighton and the local press, the Sussex Butterfly Gardens hold hundreds of exotic butterflies, moths and invertebrates, living among tropical plants. These plants serve to feed the insects and to let them breed.

The greenhouse has had other botanical roles. Built in 1952 to house tropical plants, it had become, by 2021, an unheated cold house where Plumpton College grew plants able to live outdoors in Brighton's milder climate. The present project is also educational: for the college's students the gardens act as a living classroom in animal management, conservation and horticulture, and visitors can learn about different climates, animals and horticultural environments.

The Palm House stands near the gates of One Garden Brighton, the restored walled garden of Stanmer Park, north-east of Brighton. Tickets for the Sussex Butterfly Gardens can be bought on site or booked online. The neighbouring garden adds a shop, a café and themed gardens, with which the greenhouse combines naturally.

The park, the largest in Brighton and Hove, receives about 500,000 visitors a year according to the South Downs National Park Authority, which reports more than 7 million pounds of restoration for 18th-century landscapes and buildings and notes that the estate farm is now open to visitors. Stanmer House, the village and the church of Stanmer also lie within the park.