With one week to go until the reopening of Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh’s historic Palm Houses on 2nd October, some of the organisation’s students and partners have brought back to life archive photographs of staff working in the Garden and Palm Houses in the early 1900s.
Digging into the Garden’s historic archive, they retraced the images by stepping into the same spaces where their predecessors once tended and studied the Garden’s rare and exotic collection over a century ago. As the new generation of horticulturists and scientists, they are ready to care for and research nearly 600 plant specimens returning to the Palm Houses.
The photo series is a fitting tribute as the Palm Houses near completion of the most ambitious restoration and development programme in the Garden’s 356-year history.
The original Georgian and Victorian structures have undergone five years of meticulous restoration as part of the £58 million Edinburgh Biomes project, including funding from the Scottish Government and The National Lottery Heritage Fund amongst others.
Scotland Chair of The National Lottery Heritage Fund, Dr Heather Reid, joined the collective of students to celebrate the history of the Palm Houses, recreating an image featuring a sunshine recorder positioned on the outer balcony.
Restoring the Palm Houses to their former glory has involved replacing all 5,750 panes of glass, fully restoring or replacing 600 m² of ironwork, and carrying out 500 m² of sandstone repairs.
Photograph 1 –
Then: James Douglas McKenzie worked in RBGE’s Glass Department as a probationer gardener between 1903 and 1907.
Now: Liam McMenemie (HN in Horticulture (Plantsmanship) tends to the newly rehomed plants within the renovated Palm Houses.
Photograph 2 –
Then: David Sydney Fish on the roof of the Temperate Palm House checking the Campbell-Stokes sunshine recorder, captured around 1904 – 1906. The recorder works to record sunshine, with any direct sunlight being magnified by the sphere and scorching a recordable trail on the card behind it.
Now: Still in use today, Dr Heather Reid, Scotland Chair of The National Lottery Heritage Fund, checks on the sunshine recorder on the roof of the newly renovated Palm Houses, which have now been unified as one temperate zone.
Photograph 3 –
Then: An unnamed gardener tending to RBGE’s Order Beds in front of the Glasshouse Range. Taken around 1905.
Now: Chase Mathey (MSc in Biodiversity and Taxonomy of Plants) tending to the paths outside the research glasshouses and renovated Palm Houses, preparing the walkway for guests to once again experience this area of the Gardens.
Photograph 4 –
Then: An unnamed member of the Herbaceous Department attending to an errand in the potting shed around 1905.
Now: Jessica Thomson (HN in Horticulture (Plantsmanship)) working in the modern-day potting shed. Jessica is one of many female students and staff members employed in the Gardens nowadays, whereas the first female horticulture students only began their studies in 1897.
Photograph 5 –
Then: Andrew R. Cosh was a probationer gardener at RBGE between 1907 and 1910, before emigrating to work at an estate in Massachusetts.
Now: Charlie Smith (MSc in Biodiversity and Taxonomy of Plants) watering the various palms and ferns that have been planted within the renovated Palm Houses.
The renovated Palm Houses open next week.