The island nation's links to the famous London landmark will be on full display when Japan's Emperor Naruhito and Empress Masako visit Kew Gardens on Thursday as part of their official visit to Britain.
Remnants of that longstanding relationship are dotted throughout the 330-acre botanical gardens. A large greenhouse features a room-height bronze sculpture of a bonsai tree, paying homage to Japanese horticultural art. A short walk away is the “Nihonmon” gate, an intricate cypress carving that resembles a Kyoto temple. Nearby, gravel arranged in neat waves and swirls surrounded by Japanese plants evokes a traditional tea garden.
Many dignitaries and heads of state regularly stop at Kew Gardens during official visits, and the park is one of London's most popular tourist destinations, attracting around 2.3 million visitors a year, but for the emperor and empress, the place perhaps holds even more significance.
“We have had a long-standing and close relationship with Japan, which is evident not only in the many beautiful structures in our landscape but also in our living collections, economic botany and art collections,” Richard Deverell, director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, which runs the site, said, reflecting on a month-long festival celebrating the relationship that took place at the gardens in 2021.
The 64-year-old emperor's lineage stretches back more than 15 centuries, making his chrysanthemum-bearing throne the world's oldest monarchy, but like the British monarchy, Japan's imperial family's role is symbolic and separate from the country's government.
Thursday's tour is part of a week-long visit to Britain by the couple, who have longstanding personal ties to the country. The couple studied at Oxford University in the 1980s, when the emperor was crown prince. The empress was part of a Japanese Foreign Ministry program that sends early-career diplomats abroad to study.
Kew Gardens' connections with Japan date back to the early 20th century.
Since the early 20th century, the royal and imperial families of Britain and Japan have enjoyed close ties. In 1902, the two countries signed the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, an agreement to promote cooperation and cultural exchange.
As Britain grew increasingly interested in its new ally, Japanese art exhibitions became more popular: The Japanese-British Exhibition in London in 1910 attracted more than eight million visitors, according to the Japanese Embassy in London, including Queen Mary, wife of George V and paternal grandmother of Queen Elizabeth II, an avid collector of Japanese art.
Kew Gardens' ties with Japan go back generations: the cypress “Nihonmon” gate, a miniature version of the gate to Kyoto's Nishi Honganji temple, was installed in 1911 after being exhibited at the Japan-British Exhibition in London the previous year.
After the Nihonmon Gate was restored in 1996, the replica temple and new traditional landscaping were officially opened by Princess Sayako, then the emperor's sister. (She lost that title in 2005 when she married and became a commoner.) At that opening ceremony, she planted a northern Japanese magnolia, which still grows at Kew Gardens today.
During your visit you will be introduced to the Japanese art of bonsai.
The tiny treasures, which are part of Kew Gardens' incredible bonsai collection, will be on display when the royal couple tours the historic Temperate House, one of the gardens' Victorian-era greenhouses.
Bonsai involves growing and shaping small trees in a container, often taking years for a skilled artist to complete. Highlights of Kew Gardens' collection of 60 bonsai trees include some just 10cm tall and some that are 180 years old.
Kew Gardens botanical horticulturist Richard Kernick said that while bonsai are often thought of as dwarf trees, they are actually trees that have been expertly pruned and shaped to prevent them from growing completely.
“This intricate, precise art form transforms trees into little living treasures,” he said. “Living bonsai are never-finished works of art that usually outlive their creators. Inheriting a tree is like being a rung on a ladder: there are many rungs behind you and, hopefully, many more ahead of you.”
The conservatory also displays a series of bronze bonsai sculptures by British artist Marc Quinn, as well as rare plants from around the world.
The Emperor will meet Masumi Yamanaka, the first Japanese botanical artist to reside at Kew Gardens, who will talk about his painting of the “Miracle Pine Tree”, which became a symbol of hope after Japan's devastating tsunami in 2011.
A visit to Kew is just one stop on the royal tour.
The couple, who arrived in the UK on Saturday, have also been spending time with the British royal family. Prince William will welcome the couple at their hotel on Tuesday, the start of their official visit, and King Charles III and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, will host the couple for a state dinner at Buckingham Palace the same day.
King Charles, 75, and the emperor have a lot in common, including their sometimes niche interests and the public's focus on marriage and family life.
Both are relatively new monarchs: Emperor Naruhito became emperor in 2019 when his father, Emperor Akihito, abdicated, and Prince Charles became king in 2022 after the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth. On the final day of their visit, the Japanese royal family is due to visit Oxford on Friday.
The emperor and empress visited several other sites, including the Japan House cultural center in London and the Thames River Floodwall, one of the world's largest movable seawalls. While the floodwall may have seemed like a random visit for royalty, the emperor and empress may have been more interested in it than many of the other visitors.
His memoir of his two years at Oxford is titled The Thames and I, a reference to the influence of the waterway on his academic life and his undergraduate thesis on the history of transport on the Thames in the 18th century.
Motoko Rich He reported from Tokyo.
