Queen Elizabeth Temperate House (Savill Garden)

The Savill Garden dates from 1932, when Eric Savill, Deputy Surveyor of Windsor Great Park since 1931, began clearing about ten hectares of rough woodland on the park's eastern edge, encouraged by George V and Queen Mary. Until 1939 he built a woodland and bog garden there, with streams and ponds fed by local springs. In 1951 George VI renamed the Bog Garden after its creator. Wikipedia says he opened one of his two gardens to the public in 1951, while the Windsor Great Park site gives 1953 for the first paying visitors. The garden later gained herbaceous borders, rose gardens, a Dry Garden in 1979 and, in 1995, the temperate house.

The notice at the entrance to the house, transcribed by a photographer on the geograph site, says it was opened by Queen Elizabeth II on 25 April 1995 and named for Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. It credits the design to Nicholas Thompson of Cole Thompson Associates and the construction to Wates Integra. The Friends of the Savill Garden presented the water feature, while garden staff handled the interior: layout, soil and planting.

The official sites call the house award-winning without naming the award. It is one of the features opened by the Queen at the Savill Garden, together with the Golden Jubilee Garden and the Rose Garden. The garden and the neighbouring Valley Gardens are listed Grade I on the Register of Parks and Gardens.

The entrance notice names the architect, Nicholas Thompson, and the contractor, Wates Integra; the building is mapped on OpenStreetMap and tagged as a greenhouse. The RHS lists it as a glasshouse open to the public.

In the identified photographs of the Commons category "Queen Elizabeth Temperate House", the front shows a large roof of glass panels with fine glazing bars and glazed walls, and the interior (tree ferns, a bench, planting in the ground) sits under a glazed roof of transparent panels on a white frame. A water feature presented by the Friends of the Savill Garden is part of the interior, whose layout, soil and planting were entrusted to garden staff, according to the same notice.

The house shelters, as its name says, temperate-climate plants. Windsor Great Park names winter-flowering mahonias, Australian correas, South African heathers, tree ferns and a range of unusual climbers. Winter-flowering camellias, highlighted in a Gardeners' World advertorial, also feature, and a geograph photographer notes that in February the blooms give off a remarkable scent.

The house lies in the Savill Garden, a ticketed 35-acre Crown Estate garden. Windsor Great Park suggests allowing two to three hours for the whole garden; the house takes a short part of that, and is a pleasant stop in cold weather. Mahonias, correas, South African heathers and camellias make winter its best season, and the garden's winter garden (daphnes, snowdrops, hellebores, irises) extends it into January and February.

The garden's visitor centre, the Savill Building, designed by Glenn Howells Architects and opened in 2006, offers catering; the nearby Valley Gardens, the Deer Park and Virginia Water Lake complete a day. Cycling is not allowed in the gardens.