More History and Heritage.....

1700-1772: Two Royal Gardens

William Chambers

Pagoda Vista

Kew Today.....

The Pagoda

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The Pagoda

There was a fashion for Chinoiserie in English garden design in the mid 18th century. Sir William Chambers was a keen advocate, using decorative buildings and intricate pathways as a reaction to the sweeping 'natural' lines of contemporaries such as Lancelot 'Capability' Brown.

The Pagoda was completed in 1762 and was not universally popular. The great man of letters, Sir Horace Walpole, disliked it and having seen it from Twickenham, where he lived, he complained to a friend that, "In a fortnight you will be able to see it in Yorkshire."

The ten-storey octagonal structure is 163 ft (nearly 50 m) high and was, at that time, the tallest reconstruction of a Chinese building in Europe. Purists, however, argue that pagodas should always have an odd number of floors. Kew's Pagoda tapers, with each successive floor from the first to the topmost being 1 ft (30 cm) less in diameter and height than the preceding one.

The original building was very colourful; the roofs being covered with varnished iron plates, with a dragon on each corner. There were 80 dragons in all, each carved from wood and gilded with real gold. The iron plates were later replaced by slate and the dragons vanished. Claims have often been made that that they were sold to pay off some of George IV's debts, but William Aiton, remembering them from his childhood, is known to have informed William Hooker that their wooden structure had simply rotted away.

In 1843, Decimus Burton wanted to restore the Pagoda to its former glory, but the cost then of £4,350 was considered too high a price to pay.

Wartime exploits

Contemporaries of Chambers often wondered if such a tall building would remain standing, though it had been "built of very hard bricks". Its sturdy construction was proved in World War II when it survived a close call from a stick of German bombs exploding nearby. This was ironic, since at the time, holes had been made in each of its floors so that British bomb designers could drop models of their latest inventions from top to bottom to study their behaviour in flight.

Restorations

There have been several restorations, mainly to the roofs, but the original colours and the dragons have not been replaced, though the question of replica dragons was discussed in 1979.

The Pagoda is closed to the public, although, in 2006 it briefly opened for public access.

Weather watch

The BBC have installed a camera at the top of the Pagoda as a window on the weather. It has captured some of the extremes that have been experienced so far in 2007.

Highlights of the 2007 BBC timelapse footage...

Chambers' Chinese period

Chambers was a significant contributor to the architecture of Kew. He is best known for his more restrained Palladian buildings such as Somerset House, but Kew allowed him to indulge in more fantastical architecture. The Mosque, Alhambra, Palladian Bridge and other decorative buildings have disappeared, and the Pagoda is the only remaining building from his 'Chinese period'. It is, of course, also a vital component of Nesfield's grand vistas.

Kew's Pagoda is a fine example of its type, although far removed from Chambers' original intention due to the loss of its more colourful and extravagant roofing and decorative elements. Nevertheless, the Pagoda is the building most easily seen from outside the walls. If Kew has an architectural icon, apart from the Palm House, the Pagoda is it.

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