Hi Guys, welcome to another episode of Ultimate Bucket List
and on today's show I show you around Kew palace and Kew gardens. The smallest Royal
residence in the world on the grounds of the largest botanical gardens also in the world.
Kew gardens is a Royal botanical garden located in southwest London, that houses the largest and
most diverse botanical collection of flora and fauna in the world. It's over 300 acres,
has over 50,000 species of plants and even has a Royal palace on the grounds - the smallest
in the Royal collection. But it's the sheer amount of things to do here that you'll find fascinating.
Now once you leave Kew garden station you'll find that because this place is so big,
there's four different entrances. So depending on which entrance you go into, depends on which
attractions that you see first. But to show you the sheer scale of this place let's have a look
at a map of Kew gardens. This doesn't look like much, but I assure you it will literally take
you about 30 minutes to walk from one end to the other. And this is how big this place actually is.
I came in via the north entrance so the first attraction will come to is Kew palace.
Out of all the UK Royal palaces, this is the smallest and is the former home of King George
III. You might know him as “mad King George”. And if you're not sure what he looks like … well,
he kind of looks like that! When you step into the place, you'll immediately find that history oozes
from its walls. The first thing you'll come to is the King's library. George III was apparently
an avid reader, admittedly there's not so much in here now there's a few books on display. But it's
mainly portraits it's a good place to start the tour of the palace. Next learn about the entire
Royal family lineage it's surprising to know that George III and Queen Charlotte had so many kids.
Check out their dining room. It doesn't look like much but believe it or not this is a Royal
dining room! There's also the breakfast room, which doesn't really have any breakfast stuff
in it - mainly just needlepoint embroidery. And when you walk around the place you'll
think that you're in just some normal stately home rather than a Royal palace. But that's the idea.
This place was designed as just a big giant home, it wasn't really anything grand like
the Tower of London, or Buckingham palace, or Windsor castle, or anything like that.
When you go up a floor, you'll see all of the rooms associated with the female members of the
Royal family. Such as the boudoir, where the female members entertain themselves.
The Queen's drawing room which is where the Queen entertained guests
and played on this lovely looking harpsichord. Check out Elizabeth’s ante-room,
which isn't all that big and it's kind of hard to justify a use for it. Elizabeth’s bedroom;
pretty much exactly is how she would have lived in it, and boy that bed is really small!
The most haunted room in the house is this; Queen Charlotte's bedroom. Now unfortunately
Queen Charlotte actually died in this very room, and members of staff and members of the public
reportedly see her ghost on occasion. If you're into ghosts and ghost hunting,
this is the most likely place that you'll find her. If you want to know what she looks like
well she kind of looks like this painting right here. If you've got any questions
feel free to ask the members of staff who are all dressed in these lovely period costumes.
But when you go up to the second floor that's the point where things turn a little bit sinister.
As I’ve already mentioned, King George III suffered from what was deemed as “madness”.
We know it today as mental illness and anxiety, but back in the day people didn't really know much
about it. So the doctors, rather heavy handedly, pretty much quarantined him to the second floor,
which looks like this. Imagine you're the King of a country and you're being locked in rooms like
this. Unable to see the rest of the family, unable to interact with the outside world. It's enough to
drive anybody mad being stuck here, but that's how they tried to deal with it. This is pretty
much the conditions that he would have lived in. Far cry from the luxuriousness of a Royal King,
and if you are (or you think you are) suffering from a mental illness yourself;
they've left out self-help pamphlets for you to try and get help. So please, if you are suffering
from some kind of mental illness please please get help. It certainly beats being locked up
in a place like this. I don't want this video to be a complete downer so let's
look at something a bit more positive. Welcome to the Queen's Garden! This is
traditionally where the Royalty would host their garden parties, and grow wild and exotic herbs.
It's also a fantastic garden to walk around, yes it's actually a lot of fun, and it affords some
very nice photo and video opportunities particularly of this corner right here.
Right nearby is the Royal Kitchens. This is where all of the food would be prepared
before being brought into the palace. It's very interesting to walk around the attraction I really
wanted to see most is this, the great pagoda. Which is located on the other side of Kew gardens
opposite Kew Palace. But you're probably going to be asking me; why is there a Chinese pagoda
in a British Royal botanical garden? This was a gift to Princess Augusta. Well, what a gift
to give to a girl, I guess? You have to pay extra to go up the pagoda, and I technically had tickets
for the last showing of the day. However … “So guys I grossly underestimated how big
this place actually is and it's taken me about 20-25 minutes to walk from the palace
to the great pagoda, which I technically bought tickets for. And I’ve got here with
about 10 minutes left to go, and they've closed the door in my face. Yay (!) So tip for you guys;
if you do want to visit the palace and the pagoda, get here early. I’m not joking!”
So at this point, I’m kind of walking around with the frown on my face, but I didn't have
to walk too far to get to the Japanese gardens. Yes, another Oriental thing that happens to be
in a British botanical garden. That and this peacock that's trying to hide from my camera.
And it's at this point that I should tell you about what's actually in the botanical gardens.
One minute you feel like you're in the redwoods of North America,
the next minute you're in Victorian England with Victorian glass houses, and the next minute you're
amongst Japanese cherry blossoms, Chinese statues and you're transported immediately to Asia. And
you'll come across some Greek style temples as well. You can literally visit the entire world
from this one place, which is kind of awesome. And there's over 300 acres of it. Most likely you'll
get lost, so keep an eye out for the signs and the maps, they'll point you in the right direction.
Eventually we come across Queen Charlotte's Cottage, which looks like a fairy tale
thatched roof cottage, that you've probably seen in the storybooks. Believe it or not,
this was used by the Queen as a sort of holiday home for her and the kids. And there's plenty of
things to see around the grounds. Is it open?! Oh wait no, it's not open, but that's okay.
You can see inside it and even though it's pretty in a kind of retro kind of way,
I definitely wouldn't like to be stuck here at night.
Eventually you'll come to a giant glass house in the middle of the botanical gardens this
is the Temperate House. And it's famous for being the world's largest Victorian greenhouse.
This place is massive, and you'd probably pay good money just to see this on its own.
So the fact that it's included in the price of all of this makes this pretty good value for money.
You'll see plants that you've not seen for years, you'll see flowers that you'll never know existed,
and you'll get to see all the diversity that the world has to offer in terms of greenery, plants
and flowers. I didn't even know what a golden lotus banana plant is, apparently it's that!
It will take you a while to walk through all the wings of this greenhouse, but I urge you to take
your time and enjoy the greenery, and the exotic plants, and the interesting statues located in
the Temperate House. Another cool thing you can do is actually climb the spiral staircase and you can
look at it from above. The Victorian architecture is pretty stunning as well. As it is the largest
Victorian greenhouse in the world, take your time to look at this bit because you probably won't
see another one like this ever in your life. Not only is it full of plants, it's also full
of art and there's two world famous art galleries located on the grounds. The Marianne North Gallery
and the Shirley Sherwood Gallery. Both are located south of the Temperate House.
There's other attractions too such as the Arboretum which is full of very exotic flowers,
and the Water Lily House which is fairly self-explanatory, it's full of water lilies.
But wait, what's that in the distance? Is that a walkway amongst the trees?
Yes, it definitely is! This is the treetop walkway, where you can walk
amongst the trees and get a nice bird's eye view of the entire gardens. But be warned
it's a hefty climb up to the top, and the floors are made of mesh so if you are scared of heights,
well - it's a pretty scary experience. “This is fine so long as you don't look down,
because if you look down becomes immediately obvious that you're way down there
and vertigo starts slipping in. So yeah guys, seriously don't look down!”
You know, I’m not exactly scared of heights so this didn't really bother me. But on a very
windy day I can imagine that this can be quite unnerving. But the views at the top more than
make up for it and if you're not scared of heights I strongly urge you to go up the treetop walkway.
The other giant glass house located at Kew Gardens is this the Palm House. This is where they house
all of the tropical plants. It's a fairly old house, and if you're wondering why it's so
steamy in here it's because it's absolutely boiling in here. It's hot, it's humid,
pretty much like an Amazon rainforest, but I guess that's the entire idea. I struggled mightily to
actually see where I was going, mainly because I need my glasses to see and they were all fogged up
,but eventually when I did regain my sight it was a pretty cool walk amongst the tropics. But I’ll
be honest with you, I was glad to get out of that. “Boy am I glad to get the hell out of there!
That was a very steamy place, so if you do come to the Palm House, yeah, it's really hot in there!”
The last of the giant conservatories is the Prince of Wales Conservatory. Once again it houses some
very exotic plants, probably some that you haven't seen before. It's very interesting to have a look
at, particularly the outside where they've got interesting looking plants in and amongst this
unique shaped conservatory. The Davis Alpine House right next door check that out as well.
But one of the weirdest things that I encountered here is this; The Hive. This
is some kind of metal structure supposedly resembling a beehive, but made out of metal.
And not only is it made of metal there's thousands of led lights and it has this weird vibrating
music. It's incredibly hard to describe it's just very strange. What's even stranger is this
lady right here, who's deciding to meditate in and amongst all the steel. I don't get it personally,
but I guess it appeals to some people. Whilst you're exploring the woodland scenery, the exotic
plants, the gorgeous flowers, you'll come across various things like lakes, temples and what looks
like stately homes. This one I thought was some kind of stately home … turns out it's actually a
restaurant! Yes, it's the Botanical Brasserie. And it looks like a pretty fancy place to eat.
The prices aren't actually that bad, then again you are on Royal grounds, so bear that in mind.
I can't emphasize the amount of varied stuff that you'll see here at Kew Palace and Royal Botanical
Gardens, and there's even sections of it where you can hire it out for things like weddings.
This would be a really cool place to have a wedding.
Overall guys, if you like royalty, nature, history and art - definitely visit the Royal
Botanical Gardens here at Kew. You've literally got everything on one site and it will take you
an entire day to see all of this stuff. It's a great day out for the kids and families,
and also if you're a tourist take in some culture and some history here at Kew.
Okay Ninh, I’m sold. What do I need to do? Well, you need to come here to Kew Palace and gardens.
It's situated in the town of Kew, and it's about a half an hour outside of central London.
To get here you'll need to either take the tube or the overground train to Kew Gardens station,
and unfortunately Kew Gardens station is about a 20 minute walk away from either the north or the
south entrances. I came in by the north entrance which was the complete opposite end to the Pagoda,
so bear that in mind. I wouldn't recommend driving here because there's not really many
places to park, so be warned, and you can also use other forms of public transport such as buses.
The cost? Well, it cost about £18 to do this, and even though it's listed on the HRP website,
you unfortunately don't get free entry, even with your membership, which I found out the hard way!
The Pagoda is extra, about £4.50 - I’ll be trying to get a refund on that shortly! And
is there anything else I need to know? Yes, you'll be doing a hell of a lot of walking,
especially between attractions. It's literally about 35 minutes from end to end and that's a
considerable walk. If you are somehow physically disabled or you can't walk that far, keep an eye
out for the people movers and the guided tours, so that you don't have to walk all that distance.
It will take you a while to see absolutely everything, and I’m not joking about that.
Come early, make an entire day out of it. Don't come late afternoon like I did
and expect to cram everything in three hours, because quite frankly: you won't be able to!
But overall guys if you love Royal palaces and history, this is definitely one of the ones that
you definitely have to come to. And if you have enjoyed this episode, please be sure to like,
share and subscribe. Comment on the comment section below and if you've got any other bucket
list ideas you know what to do. If I get enough suggestions, I’ll go ahead and do that. So guys,
thank you very much for watching, and we'll see you in the next episode.
Ninh Ly – www.ninh.co.uk - @NinhLyUK