A Kew Gardens Miscellany

At each end of her excursion to France Grey Granite spent a brief period in Kew. She took the opportunity to revisit Kew Gardens and to relax on Kew Green. 

In almost 4 decades of visiting Kew Green this is the first time Grey Granite has been there in summer and she enjoyed sitting in the shade of the plane trees, reading and watching this quintessentially English scene. The Green retains the air of being a village green despite the metropolitan setting and is a popular venue for informal games, picnics, dog walking and, bizarrely, yoga classes. The church in the background, St Anne's, dates with a multitude of extensions, from 1711 when it was built, largely at her expense on a site donated by Queen Anne.  On  a previous visit Grey Granite was distressed by the stark contrast between the obvious affluence of the church (trumpeted in a notice giving weekly running costs ) and the poverty of the vagrant sleeping in a side porch entrance, his worldly goods contained in a battered pram.

Toothwort,(Lathraea squamaria)
 This was growing in the beneath a hedge verge alongside the National Archives close to the two lipped door snail reserve.
Like all parasitic plants it lacks chlorophyll.


On the very hot Late Summer Bank Holiday Sunday afternoon Grey Granite revisited Kew Gardens, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site

Kew Palace and the Nosegay Garden

Once known as The Dutch House,  Kew Palace dates  from 1631 when it was built by Samuel Fortrey, a Dutch merchant and is the oldest surviving building in Kew Gardens. It has associations with the royal family who used it as  royal residence from time to time between 1728 and 1898.

The Queen's Garden constructed in the 1960's in the style and with the plants of a 17th century garden.

The Olympic Rings in front of the Orangery.Grey Granite had looked in vain for the rings when flying into Heathrow earlier in the year. She was pleased to see that many children were playing in them.

The elegant orangery dates from 1761 and was once the largest glass house in England

The Palm House, an iconic Kew gardens building, built in 1884 -88 to a design by Decimus Burton, the Palm House is now considered to be the world's most important surviving Victorian glass and iron structure.

Traditional carpet bedding by the Palm House