82 
ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS, KEW 
most ornamental architectural features that Kew possesses, its fenes- 
tration and light grey plaster front, modelled to represent bevelled 
blocks of stone, being peculiarly effective amid the 
Orangery ^ surrounding vegetation. The cultivation of orange- 
' ’ trees in large tubs was one of the most popular forms 
of horticulture in the second half of the eighteenth 
century, and as the orange is not hardy enough to withstand the English 
winter unprotected, house-room had to be found every autumn. 
In one of the old illustrations of Kew House — the neighbouring 
residence of Princess Augusta — a long row of orange-trees in tubs 
appears. It was these, no doubt, that this Orangery was built to 
accommodate. When the gardens became public property in 1841, 
the orange-trees were removed to Kensington Palace, and the build- 
ing was then used as a greenhouse, Australian and New Zealand 
plants forming the bulk of the contents. So it remained until 1862, 
when, the Winter Garden having been built, these plants were taken 
there. It was then devoted to its present use as a museum of timbers. 
As Sir William Hooker had acquired for Kew a large quantity of 
timber specimens from the International Exhibition of 1862, many 
of them large slabs or cross-sections of trees growing in the Colonies, 
the release of this house from its functions as a greenhouse was par- 
ticularly opportune. At each end of the building, on the pediment 
above the doors, there is an escutcheon affixed to the wall and inscribed 
with the letter A. The shields were placed there by William IV., in 
grateful remembrance of the Princess Augusta of Wales, “ who laid 
the foundation of all the surrounding scenes.” 
Surmounting the wooded mound just inside the Cumberland Gate 
is the Temple of H£olus. It is of open, circular design, with its hemi- 
^ 1 ^ spherical dome supported by eight columns. At the 
jEolus time it was built it was furnished with a seat which 
revolved on a pivot inside the columns. Erected origin- 
ally by Sir William Chambers about 1760, it had fallen into a ruinous 
condition by the time Sir William Hooker was appointed director. 
Under the superintendence of Decimus Burton, he had it rebuilt in 
stone in 1845 according to Chambers’s original design. Embowered 
amidst the surrounding trees, which do not, however, completely hide 
it, its chaste, classic design is singularly pleasing. 
If one could rely on old engravings in matters of situation, the 
temple dedicated to the goddess of War once stood somewhere 
