The Royal Horticultural Society maintained gardens here from 1821 to 1904, when they moved to Wisley in Surrey, this particular event drew 13,000 visitors. The carriage parking filled Turnham Green and the very few roads and avenues around the grounds. One reminiscence of the gardens includes:

Who that visited the gardens will ever forget the glorious representative collections of fruit trees, apples, pears, plums, etc., and then the huge vinery, the largest in the country, with its blazing arch of lucid glass, reminding one of a leviathan boat turned upside down. What splendid grapes - golden and luscious of Alexandria, and that everybody's useful grape, black Hambro', the delicious sweet water varieties, and other fine sorts! Who can ever forget that truly wonderful display of apples at the Apple Congress, in 1883, arranged under the picturesque canopy of grapes in that noble vinery, the fine and tempting clusters of the luscious fruit so amply and artistically set off by the refreshing green foliage?...The invocation of the Archbishop in the ancient Saxon rite of Coronation in the Catholic days of this country, some 350 years ago, was as follows:
May the Almighty bless thee with the blessings of Heaven above, and the mountains, and the valleys; with the blessings of the deep below; with the blessings of grapes and apples.

O/S Co-ords:2074.7831
Source(s):

Chiswick