RHS Garden Wisley Glasshouse (Bicentenary Glasshouse)

The Royal Horticultural Society had the glasshouse built to mark its bicentenary, in its garden at Wisley in Surrey. Construction began in April 2005, when Alan Titchmarsh cut the first turf, and the budget was stated as £7.7 million. Queen Elizabeth II opened the building on 26 June 2007. It overlooks a lake built at the same time. The building came with a landscape designed by Tom Stuart-Smith, including meadows planned by Professor James Hitchmough.

The RHS credits Peter van de Toorn Vrijthoff as architect, while the Dutch firms Smiemans Projecten and EdenParks carried out the structure and the climate installations. Since 2007 the house has seen several changes: a 4 m Norfolk Island tree fern (Cyathea brownii) was moved in 2013 for lack of space; the tenth anniversary was celebrated in 2017; the neighbouring borders were reworked in 2024 by Piet Oudolf, and the RHS plans an Orchid Gallery conversion.

The glasshouse is a single large nave-like volume whose rounded arches, built with the HighLight system, reach about 12 m (12.5 m according to the builders). It covers about 0.3 hectares, equivalent to ten tennis courts according to the RHS; with the propagation houses and technical rooms, the total built surface reaches 5,500 m². The curved toughened glass, about 11,000 m² in all and weighing 110 tonnes, is cut into rounded sheets, and light, heat and ventilation are computer-controlled.

The interior is divided into three climate zones: temperate, arid and tropical, the last held at about 20 °C at night with roughly 70% humidity. Rocks, a waterfall and caves, described by the builders, animate the interior. The building also includes propagation houses built on the Venlo system, a classroom and the Clore Learning Zone, with its Learning Space and Growing Lab.

The RHS cites roughly 6,000 plant accessions across the three zones (the builders speak of more than 5,000 tropical and subtropical plants). The tropical zone brings together bananas, bromeliads, palms, tropical water lilies and the jade vine (Strongylodon macrobotrys). The tiny waterlily Nymphaea thermarum, presented as the world's smallest, also features, as does Cyathea brownii. The garden further mentions alpine houses, topical displays and, in November, chrysanthemums.

Since 2008 the event "Butterflies in the Glasshouse" has released more than 6,000 free-flying exotic butterflies into the house; "Wisley Glow" adds a festive illumination in winter.

The Glasshouse stands in the heart of RHS Garden Wisley in Surrey, a garden of more than 97 hectares: it is best seen together with the lake and surrounding landscape by Tom Stuart-Smith, including Hitchmough's meadows and the borders reworked by Piet Oudolf in 2024. Visitors should leave time for the three zones, and more if visiting for one of the annual events, "Butterflies in the Glasshouse" or "Wisley Glow". In November the seasonal display puts chrysanthemums in the spotlight.