Charles McKimm, the head gardener of Botanic Gardens in the latter part of the Victorian age, built the Ravine in 1889. It is the only one of its size in Europe and it is divided into a temperate and a stove section. The interior is designed like a sunken ravine with a railed balcony extended around the perimeter from which the visitor look down on the plant collection.
In 1980, an aluminium-framed roof was constructed and set on to the original trusses to replace the Victorian roof. Between 2013 and 2018, the ravine was restored to how the Victorians designed the original building in 1887.
The ravine houses tropical and exotic plant species such as the Killarney Fern, orchid, banana, cinnamon, bromeliad and some of the world’s oldest seed plants.
Do you want to learn more about the history of Belfast? We pass this site on my Queen’s Quarter Tour!
