lix 
West Park and Kew , 1841-1865. 
Director. It was completed in 1848, together with the cam- 
panile, which Was intended to serve the purposes of a smoke- 
shaft and water-tower, and the ornamental terrace facing 
the water. The flues of six furnaces which heated the 
boiler of the hot-water apparatus were carried in a tunnel 
to the base of the campanile, where there was a furnace 
for the consumption of the smoke and for securing a powerful 
draught 1 . The tunnel also served for the conveyance of 
fuel from the coke yard by the Richmond Road to the 
furnaces, thus avoiding the necessity of carting over the lawns. 
The dimensions of this building are — length 362 feet, centre 
262 feet by 100 wide, and 66 \ feet in height; the wings are 
each 50 feet long and 30 feet in height. It is glazed with 
about 45,000 square feet of sheet glass. A gallery runs round 
the central portion at a height of 30 feet; there are 19,500 
feet of hot-water pipes 4 inches in diameter. It is, except the 
Crystal Palace and subsequently erected Temperate House at 
Kew, I believe, the largest glass house in existence. 
At this time the activity of the Commissioners of Woods 
and Forests was far-reaching, for it was in their contemplation 
to annex the Chelsea Botanic Gardens to Kew and to form a 
Medical Garden for the use of the colleges and schools of 
London. Referring to these schemes in letters to Mr. Dawson 
Turner, my father in 1843 writes in respect of the formation of 
a Medical Garden : ‘ It will be attended with many difficulties, 
but I shall encourage it, and have written a long memorial to 
the Board about it.’ In 1845 he writes: ‘I have to write 
to the “ Woods on an affair to be laid before the Queen 
respecting a Medical Garden adjoining the Botanical Garden. 5 
And again in 1845: ‘My Report on the Gardens is printed 
by the House of Commons, and my letter on the removing 
Chelsea Garden to Kew. Lord Lincoln thinks it will result 
1 This arrangement proved unsatisfactory and had to be abandoned. The flues 
from the furnaces are now led to two shafts in the centre of the wings of the 
house, the projecting mouths of which are masked by octagon lanterns. This 
effected both a great saving of fuel and an increase of heat, but it was not till a 
double coil of pipes was led round the gallery in the central compartment that 
the house was heated sufficiently for its purpose. 
