🇬🇧United Kingdom·Open to the public
Palm House
Kew, London
- Year
- 1844–1848
- Architect
- Decimus Burton & Richard Turner
- Style
- Victorian wrought iron
- Dimensions
- ≈19 m high, 110 m long
« The technical cradle of every great glasshouse that followed. »
Commissioned by the trustees of Kew Gardens to house the palm collection brought back by the Empire's botanical explorers, the Palm House is the oldest major Victorian iron-and-glass structure still standing. Engineer Richard Turner adapted shipbuilding techniques to curve the metal ribs without a single interior column. It still houses one of the oldest known potted plants in the world, a cycad brought back from South Africa in 1775.
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51.48° N, 0.30° W