38 ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS, KEW 
Pleasure 
Grounds 
New Palm 
House. 
In 1847 the Pleasure Grounds were opened to the public every 
Sunday and Thursday from Midsummer to Michaelmas, and were 
visited by nearly 39,000 people. At that period they 
were only accessible by two gates opening from the Kew 
Road, and one near Brentford Ferry. There was no 
direct communication for visitors between them and the Botanic 
Garden. This inconvenience was afterwards remedied, and several 
entrances were made in the boundary fence. The number of days 
on which the Pleasure Grounds were open to the public was 
gradually increased, until, from March 30th, 1864, they were, like 
the Botanic Garden, open every day of the year except Christmas 
Day. These two sections of the grounds at Kew were divided 
by the fence until 1895. In the spring of that year its removal 
obliterated at once the boundary line and the distinction between 
them. 
In 1844 the erection of the great Palm House designed by 
Decimus Burton was begun. The work occupied about four years, 
and its completion marks an epoch in the history of 
glass-house gardening, for the Palm Stove at Kew long 
remained the largest plant-house in existence. The 
site on which it stands is admirably adapted for displaying its fine 
proportions, but it has the disadvantage of being the lowest part of 
Kew, a spot at one time covered with water. As has been said : 
“ Palm trees now grow where painted Britons were wont to snare 
water-fowl.” The percolation of water through the walls of the 
underground chambers in which the furnaces and boilers are situated 
has been a source of great trouble. In the early days the extinction 
of the fires was at times only prevented by long-continued pumping. 
In later years this evil has been diminished by encasing the 
walls with waterproof material, and relaying the floors on a bed 
of concrete and puddled clay. 
To avoid the unsightliness of chimneys rising out of the building, 
an underground flue, or tunnel, was made to convey the smoke to the 
tower which stands some 150 yards to the south-east. The tunnel 
was also designed to afford a way by which fuel could be taken to 
the furnaces. This latter purpose it still serves, but as a vent for 
smoke it proved unsatisfactory, and two chimneys — one in the centre 
of each wing — were eventually built, the tops of which stand but 
little above the lantern. 
