Built in 1991 by the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and Kyoto Chamber of Trade in Japan by Tanaka, a famous Japanese garden designer, to celebrate the Japan Festival in London in 1992; the garden aims to give the feel of Japan in the centre of London.
According to the ancient Chinese book of gardens, there are six different qualities to which a garden can aspire. Grouped in their traditional complementary pairs, they are: spaciousness & seclusion, artifice & antiquity, water-courses & panoramas.
Kenrokuen in Kanazawa, which I visited earlier this year, is blessed with all six qualities but, as you can imagine, it is difficult enough to create a garden with three or four of these qualities. To be fair to Kyoto Garden, I think it has three of these qualities (seclusion, artifice and water-course) but to me it is missing some of the Japanese "feel." Still, definitely worth a visit just to see how different it is from a true Japanese garden.
Camera: Pentax *ist DS, lens: Sigma 18-50mm F2.8 EX DC MACRO
