Kew Gardens in the context of "Acton Smee Ayrton"

Sir William Chambers RA (23 February 1723 – 10 March 1796) was a Swedish-born British architect. Among his best-known works are Somerset House, the Gold State Coach and the pagoda at Kew. Chambers was a founder member of the Royal Academy.

Decimus Burton (30 September 1800 – 14 December 1881) was one of the foremost English architects and landscapers of the 19th century. He was the foremost Victorian architect in the Roman Revival, Greek Revival, Georgian neoclassical and Regency styles. He was a founding fellow and vice-president of the Royal Institute of British Architects, and from 1840 architect to the Royal Botanic Society, and an early member of the Athenaeum Club, London, whose clubhouse he designed and which the company of his father, James Burton, the pre-eminent Georgian London property developer, built.

Burton's works are Hyde Park, London (including the gate or screen of Hyde Park Corner, the Wellington Arch, and the Gates); Green Park and St James's Park; Regent's Park (including Cornwall Terrace, York Terrace, Clarence Terrace, Chester Terrace, and the villas of the Inner Circle which include his own mansion, The Holme, and the original Winfield House); the enclosure of the forecourt of Buckingham Palace from which he had Nash's Marble Arch moved; the clubhouse of the Athenaeum Club, London; Carlton House Terrace; Spring Gardens in St. James's; and the Palm House and the Temperate House at Kew Gardens. Burton designed the seaside towns of St Leonards-on-Sea, Fleetwood, and Folkestone, and also Royal Tunbridge Wells. His Calverley Estate (of which only a small proportion survives) was highly commended.

A head gardener is an individual who manages all horticultural aspects of a property or garden, including staff and volunteers. The properties they manage include historic gardens and private estates, as well as amenity horticulture teams, with a county council.

The responsibilities and required experience of a head gardener varies between roles and properties, but head gardeners are normally expected to be educated to an exceptionally high level within their field and have many years of experience to support their education. In the UK, establishments such as Kew Gardens, Capel Manor College and The Royal Horticultural Society offer training courses for professional gardeners. Some courses also offer a degree, such as Master of Horticulture.

Watermans Art Centre is a combined arts centre. It is located in Brentford, England alongside the banks of the River Thames overlooking Kew Gardens in West London, England.

It includes a 239-seat theatre, a 125-seat cinema two galleries and two studio spaces.

A pergola is most commonly used as an outdoor garden feature forming a shaded walkway, passageway, or sitting area of vertical posts or pillars that usually support crossbeams and a sturdy open lattice, often upon which woody vines are trained. The origin of the word is the Late Latin pergula, referring to a projecting eave.

It also may be an extension of a building or serve as protection for an open terrace or a link between pavilions. They are different from green tunnels, with a green tunnel being a type of road under a canopy of trees.

The Great Pagoda at Kew Gardens in southwest London was built in 1761 by Sir William Chambers as a present for Princess Augusta, the founder of the gardens. Constructed of grey brick, the pagoda comprises 10 storeys, totalling 163 ft (50 m) in height, with 253 steps to the viewing gallery. Closed for repairs in 2006, the pagoda was reopened in 2018 following a major programme of restoration. It is a Grade I listed building.

The ground floor roof is supported on wooden pillars. The storeys above this have arcaded balconies with Chinese Chippendale railings and curved roofs. The roofs are now of lead although they were originally covered in alternating bands of green and white tiles. The 80 restored dragons surmount each roof. Bridget Cherry, in her London 2: South volume of the Buildings of England series, describes the pagoda as "this supreme example of chinoiserie". A study of 2019, written after the restoration, ranked it as "the most important surviving chinoiserie building in Europe".

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. An internationally important botanical research and education institution, it employs 1,100 staff. Its board of trustees is chaired by Dame Amelia Fawcett.

The organisation manages botanic gardens at Kew in Richmond upon Thames in south-west London, and at Wakehurst Place, a National Trust property in Sussex which is home to the internationally important Millennium Seed Bank, whose scientists work with partner organisations in more than 95 countries. Kew, jointly with the Forestry Commission, founded Bedgebury National Pinetum in Kent in 1923, specialising in growing conifers. In 1994, the Castle Howard Arboretum Trust, which runs the Yorkshire Arboretum, was formed as a partnership between Kew and the Castle Howard Estate.

Sir William Jackson Hooker (6 July 1785 – 12 August 1865) was an English botanist and botanical illustrator, who became the first director of Kew when in 1841 it was recommended to be placed under state ownership as a botanic garden. At Kew he founded the Herbarium and enlarged the gardens and arboretum. The standard author abbreviation Hook. is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.

Hooker was born and educated in Norwich. An inheritance gave him the means to travel and to devote himself to the study of natural history, particularly botany. He published his account of an expedition to Iceland in 1809, even though his notes and specimens were destroyed during his voyage home. He married Maria, the eldest daughter of the Norfolk banker Dawson Turner, in 1815, afterwards living in Halesworth for 11 years, where he established a herbarium that became renowned by botanists at the time.