One roofline, four rooms and an eleven-degree swing from the tropics to the Andes. Walk them in order and the whole range takes about an hour.
27°C85% humidityLowland tropics
The Palm House is the oldest of the four and still the tallest. Its iron ribs were cast a mile away in the Fennick family foundry, and the spiral stair to the gallery lets you look down into the canopy from fourteen metres up. The air is kept at 27°C day and night by a boiler room under the floor.
19°C92% humidityTemperate rainforest
Built into a hollow so that its floor sits two metres below the lawn, the Fern House stays cool and damp without much help. Whitewash on the glass keeps it in shade all year. The tree ferns arrived as trunks in the hold of a ship in 1874 and have grown less than a metre since.
16°C95% humidityAndean mist
The newest house copies the slopes of the Andes at two thousand metres: cool days, cold nights and cloud for much of the time. Fine nozzles mist the house every twenty minutes, and a raised walk takes you up among the epiphytes that grow on the branches rather than in the ground.
24°C18% humidityDesert and dry scrub
Full sun, almost no water and humidity below twenty per cent: the Arid House is the easiest of the four to keep and the hardest to stand in for long in July. The beds are gravel over rubble, and the plants are watered by hand once a fortnight from March to October and not at all in winter.
The largest of the range, built in 1898 for shows. It is kept at 12°C in winter and changes four times a year. Next: Orchid Weeks, NaN undefined NaN to NaN undefined NaN.
Seven areas, each with its moment, so there is something at its best in every month of the year.
From 27°C in the Palm House to desert air at 18% humidity, all under one roofline. Open every day from 10 am.
