When browsing the events page of the RHS website recently (as you do) I noticed that they have started to do ‘behind-the-scenes’ tours of the Hilltop building so I booked us up for the earliest date we could all do.
Hilltop at RHS Wisley opened in 2019 after a £35 million pound investment in the building and the surrounding gardens. It serves as both a working science centre and laboratory as well as a space for the public. Hilltop replaces the old house-style building at the entrance to the gardens that were built back in 1916. Fun fact! The house was never a house at all. It was designed to look that way but was always a laboratory.
£35 million is quite a lot of money but only part of the £160m investment that the RHS has made across all the gardens. I wondered where the money came from and was told that it was a variety of donations, grants from organisations such as the Heritage Lottery Fund and money made from sales in the cafes and shops. Where the money does not come from is the entrance fees and subscriptions paid by members.
The Library
The first stop was the reference and lending library. Apparently, I can take out up to five books for four weeks as a member. Even with my interest in gardening, I can’t see that happening!
It’s not only books in the library they also have a collection of plant catalogues dating back over 100 years (they probably subscribed to Thompson & Morgan back in the early 1900s and haven’t been able to get off their mailing list). These are of historical interest for tracking trends such as the introduction of the Golden Delicious apple, for example.
The Secret Labs
Upstairs the first room we were shown was a fairly ordinary looking office room but this housed something fairly amazing. As part of the RHS membership you can write in and get your horticultural questions answered. We have used it a couple of times before and it is very useful and others obviously think so too as it is used 110,000 times a year!
Turns out that this service is useful to the RHS as well as its members as they are able to use it to track things such as the spread of disease or changes in gardener’s habits. The team apparently discover ten new things a year but most of the questions are more mundane and the top question asked is about the control of slugs.
Next to the office were three labs each with a window looking out onto the walkway where us groups of visitors gawped at the scientists doing their work inside. They must really get a sense of what it is like to be a goldfish.
The labs were labelled (by our guide I should add) “dirty to clean” by which she meant that the level of hygiene needed for each got progressively higher as you worked along the row. The final lab was more akin to a clean room and came with a shower (without window) where the occupants could rush to wash off any poisons transferred from what they were handling.
The Herbarium
The final stop was to stand outside of the herbarium and gawp through its windows, although there wasn’t a great deal to see here. The RHS had, strangely, sold off its original herbarium for the princely sum of £250 in the 1850s and has spent quite a while building the collection back up again.
The old building held 90,000 items and there is, apparently, space in Hilltop for 400,000 which is roughly the number of cultivated plants in UK so they ought to be good for a while.
Window Shopping
All-in-all it was an interesting trip especially if you like watching people working through a small window!
