A gardener designed the largest building on Earth. He got the idea from a lily pad.

1851. Joseph Paxton, head gardener at Chatsworth House, designed the Crystal Palace.

1,848 feet long. 293,000 glass panes. Built in eight months.

The largest enclosed space on Earth.

He wasn't an architect. He was a gardener who studied the ribs of a giant lily pad and realised nature had already solved the engineering problem.

He stood his seven-year-old daughter on a lily leaf to prove its strength.

The Great Exhibition opened inside his glass palace. 100,000 objects from 25 countries. The first World's Fair. Six million people came.

But when it opened, only the rich could get in. Five shillings...

A full day's wage.

Working people could see the glass palace from the street. They couldn't walk through the door.

Then they dropped the price to one shilling.

Special trains ran from every factory town in England. Four and a half million working people walked through the doors. Seventy-five percent of every visitor.

The profits built the Victoria and Albert Museum. The Science Museum. The Natural History Museum. The Royal Albert Hall. Imperial College.

Everything on that road in South Kensington exists because a gardener had an idea and working people walked through the door.