Kew Voted Britains Best Public Garden

Wed, 08 Oct 2008

The Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, West London, have been voted the UK’s top public garden in a worldwide poll .

Kew was named as the clear winner of a survey carried out travel resource TripAdvisor, holding off the runner-up the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh, home of the Queen Mother's Memorial Garden .

Third was Groombridge Place and Enchanted Forest at Tunbridge Wells, while Stourhead House and Gardens in Wiltshire and Hampton Court in Surrey were voted fourth and fifth respectively.

TripAdvisor compiled the UK’s top 10 public gardens list after carrying out research on traveller popularity. The opinions of the travel firm’s editors were taken into consideration.

Jill Preston, Kew's director of communications and commercial activities, said she was "absolutely thrilled" with the number one vote .

"As well as being a beautiful garden landscape, Kew Gardens is also a scientific institution, working to inspire and deliver science-based plant conservation worldwide," she added.

"Next year is our 250th anniversary and we hope to continue to use the gardens to inform people of the vital role of botanic gardens across the globe."

Kew Gardens, situated in Richmond upon Thames, attracted more than 1.4 million visitors this year, including 15 per cent more in the past four months, thanks to poor summer weather and the economic downturn.

Kew already holds 96 per cent of UK plant life and more than 75 per cent of Britain’s threatened plant species.

The Kew Millennium Seed Bank also aims to have seed from 10 per cent of the world's 300,000 wild plant species banked by 2012 .
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