Kew Palace: restoring a Georgian royal residence

Kew Gardens are world famous for their plant collections. But the 325-acre site also contains 40 listed buildings and two scheduled ancient monuments. The gardens are the site of three Georgian royal palaces - Richmond Lodge (demolished 1772), the White House (demolished 1802 and the target of a Time Team dig in 2002), and the Dutch House (still standing and now known as Kew Palace). Though open to visitors until the mid-1990s, Kew Palace has since been closed. Visitors, intrigued by the four-storey, gabled, redbrick house, have been left rattling on locked doors and peering through ground-floor windows. That is set to change. Thanks to a £1.6 million Heritage Lottery Fund grant, conservato