Kew Garden: Palm House set for major renovation
The planning permission for the project has now been submitted, and some of the plants that make up the indoor tropical rainforest have started to be relocated. "This is probably the plant that I worry about moving the most," says Thomas Pickering, head of glasshouses.He's standing next to one of Kew's most precious specimens: a plant called Encephalartos altensteinii, which is a type of cycad.It's growing in a pot, and at 250 years old, it's older than the Palm House itself. It's also enormous - weighing more than a tonne and standing about 4m tall."It's the sheer size of it. It has a huge weight in that root ball, but also this incredibly long stem, which is very old because they're incredibly slow-growing plants," says Pickering.The horticulturists will use scaffolds, supports and braces to protect the plant when the time comes for it to be moved. Other plants, that are a bit easier to shift, have already been taken to a temporary greenhouse.
"It's going to be a long term project," explains Pickering."And over the next two years, it's going to be a process of selecting which plants we need to containerize (place in pots) and keep, which ones we need to propagate - and also some of the plants will be felled because we won't be able to move them."
The Palm House was built more than 175 years ago and was a wonder of the Victorian age.No-one had ever constructed a glass house on that scale before and the engineers borrowed techniques from the shipping industry to build the huge structure.It was last renovated in the 1980s, but now the iron is heavily rusting in places, so it will be stripped back to the bare metal work, repaired and repainted.All of the thousands of single glazed panes of glass will be replaced and tests are underway to find the best type of glass to provide maximum insulation.
Maintaining the Palm House's temperature at 21C uses a lot of energy, but now gas boilers will be replaced with air source and water source heat pumps."This is an incredibly challenging building to make net zero," said Rachel Purdon, head of sustainability at Kew."We can do a huge amount with things like sealing the glass and improving the heating systems to massively reduce the carbon footprint and improve the sustainability of the Palm House without impacting the aesthetics."The Water Lily House, which is located next to the Palm House, will also be made over as part of the renovation. The public will still be able to visit both for the next two years before they're closed for the works.
The team at Kew acknowledges this will be a big undertaking that will have a temporary impact on people coming to their botanic gardens. But they say the results will be worth it."The really important aspect of this is to try and ensure that the structure can last as long as possible, before we have to do another refurbishment," says Rachel Purdon.
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Do you have a legal question to put to Gary? Email askalawyer@ or use the form at the bottom of the page. Dear Gary, We bought a Grade II-listed end of terrace cottage earlier this year, and one of the conveyance documents dated from 1947 relates to the addition of a large parcel of land (just under half an acre) which is used as the rear garden. The 1947 conveyance includes the addition of 'barrow rights' for our neighbours allowing them access across this land, as they lost access from their rear gardens to the road (now used for bins and cycles). The document also includes rights for the owners of our house to use a path from the left-hand side of the garden to the public highway. Over the past 70-odd years, the path has not only become overgrown, but the owners of the property to the north of the right of way have built an outbuilding (now used as a home office) that obstructs and crosses it. The 1947 conveyance describes the strip of land as being 10ft wide, yet today there is perhaps only a foot recognisable at either end. The 1947 conveyance includes a map of the rights of way and this description: 'Together with the benefit of a right for the Purchaser and others, the owners and occupiers for the time being of the premises hereinbefore described, with or without horses, carts, carriages, and other conveyances and animals, to go return pass or repass over and along the strip of land 10 feet wide lying between the points marked A and B on the said plan and thereon coloured brown.' Is there any recourse available to reinstate this right of way? Many thanks in advance, – Lewis Dear Lewis, The ace card you have up your sleeve is the very clear wording in the 1947 conveyance quoted in your question. In legal terms, this is an 'express right of way', which means it is a right defined in a legal document and granted for the benefit of the land conveyed at that time, the land you say you use as your garden. The legal right set out in the 1947 conveyance is the means and evidence for you to enforce the right of way it describes as its new owner. However, before you assert that right, I would do some preparation. First, ensure the right of way is referred to both in the Land Register entry for your cottage and the entry for the property or land which includes the path you are claiming a right over. The Land Register is a document issued by the Land Registry which summarises the relevant legal matters relating to a particular parcel of land. The fact you have a copy of the 1947 conveyance setting out an express right of way means that if the right has been missed off the Land Register for your cottage, or missed off the Register for the path, you can apply to the Land Registry for it to be noted on both titles. I am labouring this point because having the right of way noted on the Land Register as a matter of fact is the optimal starting point if you seek to clear the overgrown strip of land which you say comprises the right of way, and exercise the right. A clear impediment to your right of way is the garden office, which you say has been built across part of it. Whoever owns that building may argue that the fact it is there, and has been for some time, equates to the previous owners of your cottage having abandoned the right of way you are now seeking to enforce. 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It is not clear from your question if the owner of the path is the same as the owner of the garden office. But if they are the same person, your leverage is that the building is infringing your right of way, so you will only accept the building if they allow your right of way. One final comment is that as you are new to the locality, making some assessment of how important this issue is to you compared with not upsetting your neighbours would be no bad thing. It's one thing having legal rights and asserting them. It's quite another to assert rights with no real-world benefit at the expense of forging close connections with those who you live among. Ask a Lawyer should not be taken as formal legal advice, but rather as a starting point for readers to undertake their own further research.
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