Orangeries, Convervatories, Greenhouses and Glass Gardens

Victoria Hinshaw Appeared in The Regency Plume, V.12, N.3, p. 3 Sept.-Oct.2002 (http://theregencyplume.tripod.com/marilynclay/)

Since the first purposeful cultivation of plants, humankind has struggled to improve growing conditions by altering the environment. For the plant to thrive, is it too cold? Too dark? Too rainy? Too arid? Too windy? How can the plant's living arrangements be improved to give it maximum light, water, air circulation and fertility? How can we improve on Mother Nature?       We have no idea when some farmer got the idea of choosing a site protected from the wind, with an exposure to the longest hours of sunlight, or who first carried water to nourish that plant. Today we take for granted the cultivation of fruits, vegetables, herbs and flowers in computer-monitored locations that bring us year-round production. Obviously this is the result of centuries, perhaps eons, of experimentation and invention. Two hundreds years ago, our ancestors had a very good idea of what was needed for maximum production, and they were quickly developing the technological requirements for success.       To some extent, the terms greenhouse, glasshouse, hothouse, orangerie, pinery, and conservatory are used interchangeably, though each has a generally agreed upon specific meaning. Greenhouse or glasshouse obviously has a glass roof and walls. Hot houses have heating elements. Orangeries and pineries have floor-to-ceiling south-facing windows, usually with a roof of solid material. Conservatories are for enjoyment by people as well as the cultivation of plants. All these terms and the buildings they describe existed in regency England, mostly at royal palaces and the estates of the wealthy aristocracy. Leading architects of the time were engaged in building and improving them for conservatories, etc. had become the very epitome of modern design.       The regency era, whether one confines the definition strictly to 1811-1820 or, more broadly, to the French Revolution to Victoria period 1789-1837, was truly a time of transition in enhanced plant cultivation indoors. When it began, traditional orangeries were popular and when it ended, rooms built of delicate iron ribs holding curvilinear walls and roofs of glass had captured the fancy of all society. In her book Regency Gardens, Mavis Batey writes, "There was a new connection between house and garden through conservatories and flower corridors; interior decoration and trellised verandahs complemented each other; fluted curtains, flowerstands and flouncing shrubberies matching the elegance of Regency costume." (p.5)       Batey attributes to Sir Humphrey Repton (1752-1818) the "modern improvement, borrowed from the French, of folding glass doors opening into a garden, by which the effect in a room is like that of a tent or marquee, and in summer delightful."       One of the most famous of the Regency-era conservatories was built at Carlton House, the Prince of Wales' London residence, demolished in 1826-27, which had been redesigned for him by Henry Holland (1745-1806) in 1787. Over the years, the Prince worked hard, decorating and redecorating, to make it the most magnificent residence in Europe, and by some standards he succeeded, only to have it demolished when its position was judged obstructive to the grand design he and architect John Nash worked out to redesign large sections of London, which later were named Regent Street and Regent Park. The famous conservatory was added in 1807 of the newest construction techniques in cast iron columns and a fan vaulted ceiling supporting large glass spaces. The architect was Thomas Hopper (1776-1856) whose work was considered a tour de force. The conservatory opened into the gardens at one end. If one looked in the opposite direction, there was a clear view of the entire lower ground-floor range of rooms, at the mall level, opening into one another in this sequence from west to east: conservatory, ionic dining room, gothic dining room. As an aside, architect Hopper's subsequent commissions included the main dwellings at Gosford Castle, Northern Ireland, and Penrhyn Castle, Wales, among many others. He was particularly admired for his Normal Revival style. The Carlton House conservatory was intentionally theatrical, as some writers observed, over the top and bringing the term "elaborate" to a new level. The Prince Regency planned a great fete for 2,000 people on June 19, 1811,to celebrate his Regency. The supper table was 200 feet long, the entire length of the Ionic Dining Room and the Gothic conservatory. Men were dressed, according to J. B. Priestly in his The Prince of Pleasure and His Regency (1969), in their court dress or uniforms. Down the middle of the entire length of the table ran a curving stream of water from a silver fountain in front of the Prince. Its path was lined with flowers, mossy banks and crossed by miniature bridges. Goldfish swam up and down this tiny stream. Here is the account by John Ashton in Social England Under the Regency (1895) of the Prince Regent's conservatory and the party: "...the architecture of it is of the most delicate Gothic. The upper end was a kind of circular buffet surmounted by a Medallion, with the initials G.P.R. lined by festoons and antique draperies of pink and silver, and partly filled by mirrors, before which, on ornamented shelves, stood a variety of vases, candlesticks, &c. of the most gorgeous gold plate...In the front of the Regent's seat there was a circular basin of water, with an enriched Temple in the centre of it, from whence there was a meandering stream to the bottom of the table, bordered with green banks. Three or four fantastic bridges were thrown over it, one of them with a small tower upon it, which gave the little stream a picturesque appearance. It contained also a number of gold and silver fish. The excellence of design, and exquisiteness of workmanship could not be exceeded; it exhibited a grandeur beyond description; while the many and various purposes for which gold and silver materials were used were equally beautiful and superb in all their minute detail.       "Needless to say, this grand fete was made fun of--and so we see in 'Gudgeon fishing a la Conservatory,' the meandering stream down the centre of the Regent's table is caricatured, and taken liberties with his subject--the Prince, for instance, sat on a plain the fair ladies are provided with rods and lines. The artist has mahogany chair, and the 'stream' was banked up with moss and flowers...'" Existing watercolors of the conservatory by Charles Wild (1781-1835), who painted many views of Carlton House, do not show any plants placed to take advantage of the overhead light provided by the glass and iron fan vaulting. These watercolours were published by Rudolph Ackermann in his Repositories of the Arts, beginning in October 1819. The watercolors of Carlton House and other royal residences (Windsor Castle, Hampton Court, St. James's Palace, Kensington Palace, Buckingham House and Frogmore House) were re-issued in 1984 by The Vendome Press, ISBN 0-86565-048-9. In Regency Design, however, Steven Parissien shows a view of the Prince Regent's conservatory with extensive planting along the sides p. 218; also in Morley, p. 787). He also notes that the structure leaked badly and quotes Nash in 1822, "the glazed vaulting was 'worse than useless as a roof' and recommended replacing it with plaster." Leaks or no leaks, Prinny's conservatory was, as he wished, a trend-setter. A much more modest conservatory was built by the renowned regency architect Sir John Soane at his country home Pitshanger Manor, in Ealing, a suburb of London. Mavis Batey writes, "The breakfast room opened on to a conservatory, which ran the length of the building, with sash windows to the floor, partly of coloured glass. Soane described it as 'enriched with antique cinerary urns, sepulchral vases, statues...vines and odiferous plants; the whole producing a succession of beautiful effects, particularly when seen by moonlight, or when illuminated and the lawn enriched with company enjoying the delights of cheerful society.'" Despite the difference in scale, it is clear that the conservatories at Carlton House and Pitshanger Manor shared a common element: they were used for entertainment and socializing. Greenhouses have ancient sources.       The Romans, adept at channeling the waters and building for maximum comfort, had many schemes to enhance growing conditions for plants of all kinds. The Roman emperor Tiberius had a sort of greenhouse, called a Specularium, created with mica in small translucent flakes where we would today have glass. Tiberius, it is reported, needed a year-round supply of his favorite food: cucumbers!       Further developments in specularia included ducts carrying hot water or cool air, typical of Roman engineering. Among the plants grown in this mica-roofed structures were grapes, peaches and roses.       By the seventeenth century, various techniques for extending growing cycle and preserving plants from frost were invented in Germany and the low countries. In Heidelberg, individual shutters were set up around 340 orange trees in September and removed at Easter. This procedure was copied to protect England's first orange trees at Beddington. Diarist John Evelyn wrote in 1658 of the orange trees protected there by "a wooden tabernacle and stoves."       The French botanist Jules Charles is attributed by many with the construction of the first really practical greenhouse in 1599 in Holland. The building was used to grow tropical plants for medicinal purposes, such as the Tamarind, used for curative potions.       As the popularity of greenhouses spread, the French developed orangeries for citrus fruit trees. Some of these were quite large, holding up to 300 trees. Many had removable roofs for frost protection.       During the seventeenth century, improvements in building glass walls and providing heat through ductwork made greenhouses ever more efficient. Nor were they considered exclusively functional. Strolling, taking tea, admiring the plants brought more and more people into the conservatories. And architects constantly improved the looks of the glass structures, bringing the outdoors inside. In the eighteenth century, glass houses for the cultivation of oranges, lemons and pineapples were built all over Europe. The orangery or pinery generally had a solid roof, tile floor and huge windows facing south to ensure the greatest amount of sunlight. In the summer, the plants were set out of doors, a feat accomplished without difficulty by a large staff of gardeners. These orangeries were usually set some distance from the house.       At Versailles, the orangerie is more than 500 feet in length, 42 feet wide and 45 feet high. The lovely fragrance of orange blossoms must have been a compelling attraction for special parties held by the French court in the orangerie. Orangeries can be seen at many English country houses (e.g. Saltram House (OR1), Plymouth, Hampshire; Sezincote (OR2), Gloucestershire) and on the grounds of several royal palaces (e.g. Kensington Palace, London, OR3), as well as throughout Europe. In Boston, Massachusetts, Andre Faneuil, a well-to-do businessman, built the first known American greenhouse about 1737 mainly to grow fruit. George Washington built a pinery at Mount Vernon in Virginia in which he raised pineapples. A regency-era garden in Washington, D. C., Tudor Place (1644 31st St. NW, Georgetown), survives from 1805, and can be visited today. In addition to the historic house with its fine federal-period furnishings, the garden reflects numerous features found in gardens of the day on both sides of the Atlantic. The Tudor Place conservatory dates from the late eighteenth century. In the style of orangeries, it has three huge windows, and naturally, faces south. Numerous flowering shrubs are kept there during the winter. Another resident of the conservatory at Tudor Place is a sago palm (Cycas revoluta), said to be the third generation descendent of a plant purchased in Philadelphia in 1813. A primary motivation for the improvement of greenhouse design was the English penchant for the collection and study of botanic material from all over the globe. The earliest explorers brought back seeds and exotic species. The damp, chill English climate needed some alteration if these new species were to survive and flourish. Kew Gardens (officially the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew) originally belonged to the royal family. Frederick, Prince of Wales, (son of George II and father of George III) and his wife, Princess Augusta, had a great interest in exotic plants. Their collection is the core of today's 40,000 varieties of plants at Kew. None of Kew's hothouses survive from the Georgian period. One regency-era building, which may have been partially an orangerie, was in a state of considerable disrepair when I last visited Kew. Resembling a Greek or Roman temple, it was slated for renovation, according to guides. Among the more familiar Kew buildings, the vast Palm House dates from 1844; one of the most recent additions to Kew is the Princess of Wales Conservatory, named in honor of Augusta, Princess of Wales, and Diana, Princess of Wales, who opened the new structure in 1987. By 1825, greenhouses were becoming increasingly common, many heated by furnaces. The purpose of the greenhouse is to extend the growing season or to replicate tropical growing conditions in colder northern climes. Many of the vegetables available today in St. Petersburg, Russia, for example, are grown under glass in acres of greenhouses that rim the city, a necessity for the climate. The St. Petersburg greenhouses date from shortly after the founding of the city of Peter the Great at the dawn of the eighteenth century. By the middle of the 19th century, the popularity of greenhouses had grown exponentially. What's more, materials became less expensive and more readily available, so greenhouses and growing plants under glass were no longer a pastime only of the wealthy. Small greenhouses and conservatories of many designs were added to middle class Victorian houses. There was also competition by cities and countries to build conservatories as part of grand public parks. These housed exotic, non-native plants as well as common varieties, and remain popular today. One of the most famous glass buildings in the world was the Great Exhibition's Crystal Palace, built in London in 1850-51 for the Great Exhibition. Chief architect was Joseph Paxton (1803-65), former gardener to the sixth Duke of Devonshire (the Bachelor Duke). It contained all kinds of exhibits, not only plants. Nonetheless, the design of the Crystal Palace influenced decades worth of greenhouses and conservatories. Paxton was influenced by the achievements of Knight and Loudon in creating more efficient greenhouses.       Thomas Albert Knight (1759-1838) published a paper in 1812, laying out his theories on the most efficient structure of glasshouses. Rather than designing them based on the style of existing orangeries, Knight proposed different arrangements with curving walls and roofs. His work supplemented the achievements of John Claudius Loudon (1782-1843), who studied growing techniques all over Europe and was an admirer of Thomas Jefferson. Elizabeth Rogers in her book Landscape Design, writes, "Experimenting with different shapes and structural techniques in his Bayswater garden, in 1816 Loudon invented a curvilinear sash bar of wrought iron. His experiments also led him to propose a 'ridge and furrow,' or double meridian, glazing system in which the glass panes of the conservatory were angled so as best to catch morning and afternoon light while preventing the scorching of leaves by the direct rays of the noondays sun ...and pulleys in the manner of Venetian blinds to gain a more desirable angle...or to let in fresh air and summer rain showers." (p.317) At Chatsworth, Paxton became chief gardener in 1826 at age 23. He built a great conservatory there, often considered as a prototype for the Crystal Palace. Devonshire wrote that when Paxton arrived at Chatsworth, he found, "...four pine-houses, bad; two vineries, which contained eight bunches of grapes; two good peach houses, and a few cucumber frames. There were no houses at all for plants..." All of this was to change in a very short time and gardens would never again be the same. By the early nineteenth century, tastes were evolving. In his outstanding work, Life in the English Country House, Mark Girouard writes, "The upper- and upper-middle classes had reached the stage of sophistication at which they could react against their own civilization and endeavour to go back to nature. They found nature both in the countryside, preferably in as wild a state as possible, and in man in the countryside, preferably in the supposedly unconstrained, passionate and pure state as presented in the myth or model for the Noble Savage....towards the end of the eighteenth century people began to feel that the main rooms of a house should be in touch with the outside world-not just by views through the windows, although increasing attention was paid to these, but also by means of having the rooms at ground level, with low-silled windows or actual French windows opening straight into the garden or on to the lawn. The rooms thus flowed out in the garden and correspondingly the garden made inroads into the house, in the form of vases and pots of flowers or occupied an entire room in the form of a conservatory attached to the home." (214) The regency era was truly the cusp of dramatic changes in science, technology, manufacture and democratic values. All of these changes can be seen in the very interesting and significant developments in conservatories and greenhouses.       For more information on all sorts of garden buildings, see article by Debbie Raleigh in the July/August 2000 Regency Plume. For her help in finding some interesting sources on this subject, special thanks to Jo Manning.

Among the sources used for this article are:    Batey, Mavis, Regency Gardens, Shire Garden History, 1995, ISBN 0-7478-0289-0.    Hobhouse, Penelope, Gardening Through the Ages, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992, ISBN 0-671-72887-3.    Parissien, Steven, Regency Style, Washington, D. C.: The Preservation Press, 1992, ISBN 0-89133-172-7    Rogers, Elizabeth Barlow, Landscape Design: A Cultural and Architectural History, New York:       Harry N. Abrams, Inc. Publishers,2001, ISBN 0-8109-4253-4.

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