Botanic Gardens
Botanic Gardens features on the Gingerguide audio walk through Belfast. Give it roughly ~90 min: enough to look, hear a two to three minute story on the spot, and ask the AI guide whatever the story leaves open.
- Type garden
- Suggested visit ~90 min
- Belfast Belfast guide
About Botanic Gardens
Belfast's beloved green heart, founded in 1828, home to a pioneering curvilinear Palm House and the spectacular Tropical Ravine, surrounded by rolling lawns in the university quarter.
Belfast's Botanic Gardens, stretching over 28 acres in the city's university quarter, were founded in 1828 by the Belfast Botanic and Horticultural Society as a private pleasure ground for its wealthy subscribers. Belfast Corporation purchased the gardens in 1895 and threw them open freely to all citizens, a democratic tradition maintained to this day. The gardens are home to two remarkable Victorian glasshouses. The Palm House, constructed in stages between 1839 and 1852 and designed by Charles Lanyon, is one of the earliest surviving examples of curvilinear iron-and-glass glasshouse design in the world, predating the Kew Gardens Palm House. It shelters a magnificent collection of tropical plants beneath its soaring curved glass canopy. The Tropical Ravine, built in 1886 and reopened after a major restoration in 2018, is a dramatic sunken fernery where a cast-iron balcony gallery overlooks a canopy of lush tropical vegetation. Rose gardens, herbaceous borders, and broad lawns complete one of Ireland's most cherished public spaces.
Did you know? Belfast's Palm House predates the famous Palm House at Kew Gardens in London, making it one of the oldest surviving curvilinear iron glasshouses in the world.
How long is a visit to Botanic Gardens?
Set aside roughly ~90 min for Botanic Gardens. That covers a good look and the narrated story, and because you set the pace you can always stay on.
Is Botanic Gardens worth your time?
Botanic Gardens is among the 22 narrated highlights the Gingerguide team chose for Belfast, so it is worth a look. Hear the story for the context, then ask the AI guide for anything more.
Nearby stops in Belfast
Hear the story of Botanic Gardens
Preview the Belfast tour free in the Gingerguide app.