8 
ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS, KEW 
Kew 
Road. 
1:758-9, it ceased to be of much use as a thoroughfare. It became 
less frequented, and is said to have ultimately become the resort 
of bad characters. For this reason, and still more because the death 
of his father and grandfather brought both the Kew and the Rich- 
mond properties into his own hands, George III. obtained powers 
from Parliament in 1765 to close Love Lane. For causes not very 
apparent now, this Act does not appear to have been operative at the 
time and, according to local tradition, Love Lane did not entirely 
disappear until 1802. 
The King, in return for the privilege of abolishing the path, made 
the present Kew Road in the year 1767. Previous to this date, this 
now busy thoroughfare was known as Kew Lane, and was 
unfitted for vehicular traffic. The main route from Rich- 
mond to Kew was by way of the present Lower Mortlake 
Road, and a lane through the fields northwards. Besides making 
the new road, which is said to have given employment to 300 
men, the King also agreed to keep it in repair. This duty, after- 
wards undertaken by Government, was in 1884 transferred to 
the local authorities, the expense being commuted by the annual 
payment to them of a fixed sum from the public purse. 
In 1737, Queen Caroline died. She had made the embellishment 
of Richmond Gardens the chief diversion of her later years, and 
although her income from the time of the accession of 
George II. had been £100,000 per annum, it was found 
after her death that she was £20,000 in debt, largely 
due, it was believed, to her lavish expenditure on the 
gardens at Richmond and Kensington. From the time of her 
decease to that of George II. in 1760, little alteration took place in 
the grounds and gardens of Richmond Lodge, for the King did not 
share his consort’s tastes in these matters. The house, however, 
continued to be a favourite resort of his, especially in summer. 
With the accession of George III., and the frequent occupation 
of Richmond Lodge by him during the next ten or twelve years, 
(( „ the character of Richmond Gardens was greatly changed. 
Brown 1 ^ Nearly all traces of the work of the Queen and her 
two chief advisers, Bridgman and Kent, disappeared. 
The young King had the assistance of another landscape artist, even 
more famous than his predecessors. This was Launcelot — or, as 
he was nicknamed, “ Capability ” — Brown, who afterwards left his 
Queen 
Caroline’s 
Death. 
