George III's Great Pagoda in Kew Gardens
Historic Royal Palaces Podcast
Historic Royal Palaces
4.7 • 701 Ratings
🗓️ 28 August 2025
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
George III's Great Pagoda in Kew Gardens is the tallest building Historic Royal Palaces looks after. With its Chinese-inspired design and fierce dragons, it is an eye-catching example of the Georgian fascination with architecture from around the world.
Welcome back to the new series of A Space I Love, the mini-series that transports you to history where it happened.
Join curator Lee Prosser on a dizzying climb to the top, and uncover the secrets that informed the restoration of this unique historic building.
Learn more about George III.
Visit the Pagoda at Kew Gardens.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello listeners. We know how much you love being immersed in the history of our palaces. |
| 0:06.0 | So over the next three episodes, we'll be taking you behind closed doors, |
| 0:11.0 | pulling back the curtains and transporting you to some of the most special places in our palaces. |
| 0:17.0 | Our curators will give you a private tour through their favourite spaces, |
| 0:21.6 | even some that aren't open to visitors. Welcome to the brand new series of a space I love. Get ready Gardens in the west of London. It's a lovely summer's day, it's a little windy, |
| 0:57.0 | but the best thing of all is it's before opening hours, |
| 1:00.0 | so it's very quiet here, and all I can hear are the sound of parakeets in the trees, |
| 1:05.0 | and occasionally a plane might go over. |
| 1:08.0 | But I'm standing in front of one of the most exotic buildings in the country, |
| 1:12.6 | the great pagoda. I love watching the reaction of people who come to the gardens who don't |
| 1:18.6 | know that this building is here because they always look really astonished when they suddenly |
| 1:22.6 | come across this Chinese building in the middle of London. And I think what must it have been like in the 18th century when people who had never seen a Chinese building in the middle of London. And I think what must have been like in the 18th century |
| 1:29.3 | when people who had never seen a Chinese building came here |
| 1:32.3 | and saw something that was so extraordinary, so exotic, |
| 1:35.3 | that they were completely astonished by it. |
| 1:38.3 | I'm Lee Prosser. I'm one of the curators who works for historic royal palaces, |
| 1:45.0 | and we have the very great fortune of being able to look after this building. |
| 1:49.0 | And in 2018, I helped as part of the team to restore this building to the way that it looked in the 18th century. |
| 1:57.0 | So we have a building that's 10 stories high. You have these little canted roofs on each story and actually it's a trick of the eye but the building does get more and more slender as you go up. |
| 2:08.6 | There are balconies on each floor and the most extraordinary thing are that we have 80 dragons on the hips of each of the roofs looking like they're just about to pounce upon us. |
| 2:19.3 | I think one of the things we have to remember when we look at this building is it doesn't seem so tall today. |
| 2:25.3 | But in the 18th century this would have been one of the tallest buildings around. |
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