Victoria Gate Visitor Centre, The Campanile and Temple of Arethusa

Victoria Gate Visitor Centre

This is a hive of activity all year round. Most visitors enter the Gardens this way, from coaches and cars parked in Kew Road and from Kew Gardens station. As well as an entrance, the Visitor Centre offers a wealth of information, including how to join Friends of Kew; a range of quality refreshments, toilet facilities, and Kew's main shop.

On the way into the Gardens, a mural commememorating The Great Storm of 1987 is actually made of different woods from trees felled during that dreadful night.

The Campanile

One of the 39 listed buildings at Kew, the Campanile is in the Italianate Romanesque style of stock brick with red brick dressings. Immediately on the right, after exiting the Visitor Centre, this classical 'bell tower' was designed by Decimus Burton as a disguised chimney for the Palm House boilers 100 m (328 ft) away. A tunnel for both the flue and a railway to carry coal linked the two buildings. Today, it carries hot water piped to the Palm House heaters from modern boilers near the Victoria Gate Centre.

Temple of Arethusa

On exiting the Visitor Centre towards the Palm House Pond, the Chambers-designed Temple of Arethusa, built in 1758, is on the right, just past the Campanile. Arethusa was a nymph, an attendant on Diana the Huntress. When a river god tried to seduce Arethusa as she bathed, she called to Diana for help and was transformed into a fountain.

Find out more about the Remembrance Sunday wreath

The Temple is now used as Kew's war memorial. Each year Kew supplies a wreath for the Remembrance Sunday parade in London, containing flowers from the UK Overseas Territories, and laid by the Foreign Secretary. A duplicate of this wreath is made as a back-up, and this is laid in the Temple of Arethusa if it is not used.

Continue the tour

Back up to: Palm House Zone

Carry on to: Pagoda Vista Zone

See also

Kew's History & Heritage: Victoria Gate