CONSERVATORIES. 



371 



or good sense either, be attached to the 

 owner's dwelling, so that it can be visited 

 at all times without inconvenience, and 

 indeed, upon fitting occasions, thrown 

 open so as to form part of his house. 

 Again, a conservatory may be erected in 

 some part of the grounds as an object to 

 be seen from some particular point, or 

 it may be attached to a flower garden, in 

 the Italian or similar decorative style. 

 In either of the latter cases, the conser- 

 vatory should accord with the architec- 

 ture of the mansion : it should be an 

 object consisting of something more than 

 a mere sheet of glass, and ought to be 

 in strict keeping with the garden of 

 which it is to form no unimportant part. 

 In the first case, 



we hold it to be Fig. 508. 



a house to show 

 off plants al- 

 ready grown, and 

 brought into it 

 for the enjoyment 

 of the owner, and 

 to be kept always 

 gay with flowers 

 supplied from 

 other sources. 

 There may, in- 

 deed, be perma- 

 nent trees in it — 

 such as oranges, 

 camellias, and 

 some creeping 

 plants also. Such 

 a house, there- 

 fore, if nearly all 

 glass, and much 

 exposed to the 



sun, would be the very worst possible 

 place for the purpose of retaining the 

 flowers in perfection for any length of 

 time ; — too warm to be enjoyed during 

 the day, and, if not exceedingly well 

 fitted and kept in repair, too cold and 

 draughty during the night, when evening 

 parties might wish to promenade in it. 



An effective and imposing conservatory 

 was once attached to the Regency Cottage 

 in Windsor Park ; but, like most of the 

 gardening works of that period, it is now 

 talked of as a thing that was. We allude 

 to the house because it was actually in the 

 cottage style, in form a parallelogram ter- 

 minating in a circular saloon, which latter 

 was thatched without, and the ceiling 



covered with the bark of trees and cor- 

 nices formed of pine cones. This house 

 formed the termination of the principal 

 suite of apartments, which all opened, by 

 means of movable partitions and very 

 wide doors, into one grand promenade. 



At Pain's Hill, Clarence Lodge, &c, 

 the conservatories form good adjuncts to 

 the mansions, and the one attached to 

 Chatsworth, even with a bad exposure, is 

 an additional luxury even in the palace 

 of the Peak; and the same may be said 

 of that at the Deepdene. Of those that 

 are incongruous and completely out of 

 place, we may mention that at Trent- 

 ham, at the entrance to the house, those 

 at Tottenham Park, Welbeck, &c, as be- 

 ing amongst the 



worst. That at 

 the Deepdene, fig. 

 508, forms not 

 only part of the 

 elevation, but of 

 the general de- 

 sign of an Italian 

 residence consi- 

 dered as a model. 

 How far a conser- 

 vatory attached 

 to a castellated 

 mansion would be 

 in good taste, we 

 are not prepared 

 to say, not having 

 had an oppor- 

 tunity of seeing 

 one, although we 

 know that such 

 do exist ; and, as 

 an instance, we 

 may mention that at Swinton Park, where 

 the conservatory is built to correspond with 

 the adjoining castellated mansion, plants 

 have been grown in it to a very high state 

 of perfection. We have, however, ventured 

 to attach one to a strictly Norman-Gothic 

 residence at Dunnemarle near Culross, 

 fig. 509, which, we are told, has met with 

 commendation. The conservatories at 

 Alton Towers we consider objectionable, 

 as there was no positive necessity for 

 their being so strictly architectural to 

 the extent they are, they being discon- 

 nected with the house, and not even in 

 the same style. They partake too much 

 of house, and too little of garden archi- 

 tecture — two entirely different branches of 



