Glasgow Botanic Gardens

Glasgow Botanic Gardens
Location	Glasgow, Scotland;
Key people	Thomas Hopkirk (Founder); William Hooker (Developer); John Kibble (Architect of historic glasshouse);
Website	The Friends of Glasgow Botanic Gardens

Glasgow Botanic Gardens is a botanical garden located in the West End of Glasgow, Scotland. It features several glasshouses, the most notable of which is the Kibble Palace.

The Gardens has a wide variety of temperate and tropical flora,

national collection of tree ferns,^[2] and a world rose garden officially opened in 2003 by Princess Tomohito of Mikasa.^[3]

The

green spaces

.

The Botanic Gardens was awarded a Green Flag Award in 2011.^[1]

History

In 1817 about 8 acres (32,000 m²) of land were laid out at Sandyford, near Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow, and run by the Royal Botanic Institution of Glasgow (founded by

Glasgow Corporation

.

The site was once served by a railway line, and Botanic Gardens Railway Station remains today in a derelict state as a remarkable example of a disused station. It is hidden behind some trees and a metal fence blocks access to the platforms. Kirklee railway station also lies just inside the gardens.

Kibble Palace

The Kibble Palace is a 19th-century

Walter Macfarlane at his Saracen Foundry in Possilpark. Eventually brought up the River Clyde by barge to the Botanic Gardens, it was fully erected at its current location in 1873 by Boyd of Paisley.^[7]

The building structure is of curved

temperate plants. The main plant group is the collection of New Zealand and Australian tree ferns

, some of which have lived here for 120 years and which now form the national tree fern collection.

In the 1920s a statue was added in the palace to "King Robert of Sicily", a figure from the works of the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. This is by the Scottish sculptor George Henry Paulin.

In 2004 a £7 million restoration programme was initiated to repair corrosion of the ironwork. The restoration involved the complete dismantling of the palace, and the removal of the parts to Shepley Engineers in Shafton, South Yorkshire for specialised repair and conservation. The plant collection was removed completely for the first time ever, and the ironwork was rebuilt over a rearranged floorplan, giving the palace a prolonged life. It re-opened to the public in November 2006.

The building contains a large collection of orchids, carnivorous plants and tree ferns.

Sculptures in Kibble Palace

King Robert of Sicily (a hero created by Longfellow) by George Henry Paulin (1927)
Cain by Edwin Roscoe Mellins (1899)
Eve by Scipione Tadolini (c. 1870)
Ruth by Giovanni Ciniselli (1880)
The Sisters of Bethany by John Warrington Wood (about 1871)
The Elf by
William Goscombe John
(1899)
Stepping Stones by
William Hamo Thornycroft
(1878)
The Nubian Slave by Antonio Rossetti (c. 1880)

sculptures in the Glasgow Botanic Gardens
The Sisters of Bethany
The Elf
Cain

Library

The Gardens has a small but long-established research library. It contains over 2,300 items in its main books collection, a hundred items in special collections, a range of botanical periodicals, and a run of Curtis's Botanical Magazine (1787-present).^[8]

The library is not a public library but a reference collection for those working directly with the Gardens, and for botanical or horticultural students and researchers.^[9]