A day at Kew

Spent the day at RBG Kew today - no car, so I went on the bus which was a change! Not a great day for photography, dull, white sky etc, so could have been better. This is the magnificent Victorian Palm House, designed by Decimus Burton and completed in 1848.

My first extra is of picture of the Italianate chimney built to take the fumes away from the underground furnaces used to heat the Palm House in Victorian times. The 500ft long tunnel took away the smoke and allowed the coal to be transported underground to the boilers.

The second extra is a mural made from wood of some of the trees blown down in the hurricane of 1987. 15 million trees were blown down in the UK, over 700 at Kew, mostly old, historic specimens. This mural is made from a variety of species.