The Rolles family built Bicton House and its gardens beginning around 1730 and finished at the end of the century.

 Bicton Gardens, in England, has not one but FOUR glasshouses housing various exotic plants. The Palm House was built in the 1820s with a gutsy curvilinear and Victorian design made up of 18,000 small glass panes installed together in thin iron glazing bars. The greenhouse has brick with limestone coping and plaster along its rear curtain walls. The terrace walls utilize local stone rubble and brick, while the structure is made from timber and cast-iron. Walls and ceilings for the greenhouse are made from glass, and the whole Palm House faces south-west. 

“The Palm House predates Joseph Paxton’s famous glass house constructed for the 1851 Great Exhibition in London and is one of the finest examples of a Victorian glasshouse in Britain…”

- Britain Express

The space houses rare and exotic palms. It is the second-largest palm house in Britain, after the Palm House at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. Today, visitors can visit Bicton Park Botanical Gardens to see the historic house, the Palm House and all of the property’s grounds.