The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is world-famous and a World Heritage Site located in 300 acres beside the River Thames between Richmond and Kew in south-west London. It boasts 6 glasshouses, the great pagoda, a range of landscapes and the “largest and most diverse botanical and mycological collections in the world”. Of the greenhouses, the Temperate House, which showcases plants from temperate regions, is the world’s largest Victorian glasshouse. There is also a large, specialist, library. One highlight of a visit is Kew’s Rhizotron and Xstrata Treetop Walkway which takes visitors underground and then 59 feet (18 metres) high up in the air.
The botanic gardens were founded in 1840, though its roots (pun intended) go back much further, to at least 1759 when Princess Augusta, mother of King George III, established a nine-acre botanic garden within the pleasure grounds at Kew. However, this part of the world has been a bit of a Royal Playground for centuries.
Kew Gardens has its own small police force, the Kew Constabulary, operational since 1847. Entry into the gardens also gives entry to Kew Palace, managed by Historic Royal Palaces. Kew, and the botanic gardens at Wakehurst, Sussex, are managed by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, a government sponsored internationally important botanical research and education institution.