THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, June 9, 1857. 
153 
house, on the grounds that I was present at the first 
breaking for the foundation, as L mentioned last February; 
that I examined the different parts of this splendid 
edifice in the hands of the different workmen under 
Mr. Weeks at his manufactory, a little higher up in the 
King’s Road, Chelsea ; that Mr. Weeks himself explained 
to me on the spot all the arrangements of construction, 
the principle and modes of ventilation, and the beauty 
and simplicity of the heating apparatus; and that Mr. 
Gruneberg gave me a full sketch of the way in which 
he intended to have it laid out and planted; also the 
sources, in different parts of the Continent and around 
London, whence he intended to draw the most suitable 
kinds of plants for it after exhausting his own resources. 
From the first step to this point in the story I did claim 
the privilege of being the first to announce its praise 
and its completion to the nations. Judge, therefore, of 
my gratification when I read a glowing eulogium on 
“ The Winter Garden at Chelsea” in the Times before I 
was aware that it was completed. 
The Times passed through the conservatory and 
reached the beautiful and magnificent Winter Garden, ; 
which exceeds anything of the kind yet attempted in 
this country, and which is an elegant construction of ; 
wood and glass, seven times as large as a common-sized 
hothouse; or, as is shown in our last volume, page 398, 
as large as a common hothouse 560 feet long and 17 
feet wide, and all that area has been added to the , 
heating from one boiler, making in all 18,600 feet 
heated to from 40° to 45°, taking the average between 
the stove and greenhouse heat, and all by 7000 feet of 
| piping, which we may average at three inches diameter, i 
I some of them being only two inches, some three, and 
! some four and five, or more. ' 
Three of the sides abut on the central conservatory 
and on its two wings, and the fourth side is exposed to 
the north pole. The section of it at page 398 of our 
last volume shows the width to be sixty-eight feet, and 
the length is seventy-four feet. The elevation is in two 
spans, one above the other. The lower span is eighteen 
feet high, and rests against a beam, which is supported 
by elegant iron columns not thicker than the wrist. 
Over the beam are three feet of upright glass, which 
moves on hinges for ventilation with a slight pull; the 
opposite side of the span is similar. From over the 
ventilating frames springs the second span, which meets 
in the ridge. Over the sides, which are ten feet high, and 
just under the lower span, is another frame thirty inches 
high, the length of the building, which moves hori¬ 
zontally on rollers as easily as a cottage window by one 
pull. The lower span is fixed, hut the top span slides 
up and down by pulleys and weights, all the sashes 
right and left moving with one pull. Thus, with only 
three pulls, the whole lengths over the side walls, so to 
speak, the centre of the double-spanned roof, and the 
ridge, open from the eighth of an inch to any extent 
necessary to render the inside almost as cool as the 
open air, all in less than one minute, or in less time 
than it would take to air a three-light Melon frame 
The bracings for strengthening the root are tastened 
out of sight on a new plan, and are as light and elegant 
as a feather compared with former contrivances. Three , 
doors from the conservatory open into the Winter Garden 
in front, and as many from each of the side wings, with 
a large door in the north end centre. All round the j 
house is a border thirty inches wide, in which a double 
crop of the best greenhouse plants is planted out of 
small pots—one crop for training against the low wall 
which supports the upright glass sides, and another row 
in the centre of the border for training into specimen 
plants, and as soon as any of them get too big for that 
place they are potted to be sold to exhibitors, or to such as 
