Open House London is coming up on 21-22 September 2019. Among the various buildings being freely opened to public visitors are the former Museum of Economic Botany at Kew Gardens, for only the second time in 60 years. The re-opening for this weekend forms part of the joint AHRC Royal Holloway/Kew Mobile Museum project (www.royalholloway.ac.uk/mobilemuseum).

The Kew Museum, which opened in 1847, was closed to the public in 1960. For the Open House event,  we'll be opening the former museum gallery and displaying some of the treasures from the Collection (c.100,000 objects in store). There will also be researchers and curators on hand (including two of the Department's current PhD students) to discuss a wide variety of topics including the global history of paper, cinchona and quinine, Amazonian Indigenous heritage, basket-making, and school museums. There will also be practical demonstrations of basketry and paper-making.

Further exhibits will cover the current use of the former museum building (one of four originally on the Kew site) as a School of Horticulture. 

Practical details: Open 10am – 4pm on Saturday & Sunday 21-22 September (we suggest arriving by 3pm – there will be lots to see). Free  admission to the Museum for Open House Visitors is via the Jodrell Gate on Kew Road – look up TW9 3DS on Google maps, 10 minutes from Kew Gardens and Kew Bridge stations. The event is also open to Kew members/ticket-holders who have entered the Gardens.

Websites: 

https://openhouselondon.open-city.org.uk/listings/3331

https://www.kew.org/kew-gardens/whats-on/open-house-london-school-of-horticulture

www.royalholloway.ac.uk/mobilemuseum

https://www.kew.org/science/our-science/projects/mobile-museum-economic-botany-in-circulation