TROPICAL LIMEHOUSE

In 2014, John Edmiston wrote a proposal for a hardy exotic garden in Limehouse, utilising its warm riverside inner-city micro-climate and celebrating the historical connection between the London Docks and the Nineteenth Century plant-hunting expeditions, in particular, of the East India Company. It was through the London Docks that the new plant introductions first entered the United Kingdom, enriching botanical collections and transforming the country into the gardening nation it is today. Planthunters like Robert Fortune, spent years in the Far East discovering new plants that have since become horticultural mainstays. It was Fortune, working for the East India Company that enabled the establishment of the Indian tea industry. A collaboration between Tropical Britain and architect Ian Ritchie, CBE RA developed into a community project that became known as Tropical Limehouse where an exotic garden, a cultural centre for local history and exhibitions together with a tea house were envisioned in a unique setting close to the Thames and the Limehouse Basin.

The GLA land had been earmarked for housing development and the local community was determined to save it as a useful green-space. The community were successful in having the land awarded as an Asset of Community Value (ACV) but were then unable to decide a way forward. The project is on hold until a decision can be made.

TROPICAL LIMEHOUSE

In 2014, John Edmiston wrote a proposal for a hardy exotic garden in Limehouse, utilising its warm riverside inner-city micro-climate and celebrating the historical connection between the London Docks and the Nineteenth Century plant-hunting expeditions, in particular, of the East India Company. It was through the London Docks that the new plant introductions first entered the United Kingdom, enriching botanical collections and transforming the country into the gardening nation it is today. Planthunters like Robert Fortune, spent years in the Far East discovering new plants that have since become horticultural mainstays. It was Fortune, working for the East India Company that enabled the establishment of the Indian tea industry. A collaboration between Tropical Britain and architect Ian Ritchie, CBE RA developed into a community project that became known as Tropical Limehouse where an exotic garden, a cultural centre for local history and exhibitions together with a tea house were envisioned in a unique setting close to the Thames and the Limehouse Basin.

The GLA land had been earmarked for housing development and the local community was determined to save it as a useful green-space. The community were successful in having the land awarded as an Asset of Community Value (ACV) but were then unable to decide a way forward. The project is on hold until a decision can be made.