Walled garden at Glemham House, with glasshouses, ancillary buildings and melon pit

Summary

The walled garden stands to the north of Glemham House and was constructed between 1814 and 1823. It is contemporary with the house and may have been designed by Thomas Hopper.

Reasons for Designation

The walled garden with its glasshouses, ancillary buildings, and melon pit at Glemham House, Great Glemham, built between 1814 and 1829, are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as a good example of a polygonal walled garden, designed to maximise access to sunlight through its unusual plan;
* for its likely authorship by Thomas Hopper, architect of Glemham House.

Historic interest:

* for the survival of the site's early fabric, especially the original Georgian glasshouse west of the central northern doorway;
* as part of the single-phase Regency landscape that has undergone little alteration since 1829.

Group value:

* for the designed and functional group formed by the house, estate buildings and landscape: particularly the Grade II* listed Glemham House, the Grade II listed lodge, gateway piers, timberyard and dovecote, and the Grade II registered Park and Garden.

History

Ownership of ‘Glemham Park’ passed to Samuel Kilderbee senior in 1787. The location of the mansion house at that time is unclear but the former stables and a dovecot of C18 date survive to the south west of the present house which might indicate a possible location.

Samuel Kilderbee junior demolished the old house and constructed the present Glemham House and its walled garden from 1814 to approximately 1823. The property was sold in 1829 to the Moseley family who owned it until 1871. From this date it was briefly owned by the Duke of Hamilton but following his death in 1895 it again changed hands. The estate was sold again in 1913. During the Second World War the house was initially occupied by children evacuated from London, then by the Army. The house returned to private domestic use after the war.

The walled garden was in place by 1829 with crossing paths, a central basin and two glasshouses at the northern end with lean-to buildings behind them.

Under the Moseley's ownership between 1829 and 1871 the layout of the walled garden was largely unaltered, with the exception of several new glasshouses. Those that already existed on the south side of the north wall were augmented: a new glasshouse was constructed on the east side, and the western glasshouse was extended. On the outer south-side of the garden a further glasshouse was constructed, though now only the buried remains of its heating system survive below ground.

The 1871 sale particulars describe the lean-to buildings behind the northern glasshouses as a seed room and apple room. The rest of the walled garden was said to contain both standard trees and wall-grown fruit and may have included flower beds.

In 1905 an inventory included a vinery, conservatory and peach house. They were described again as a vinery, peach house and carnation house in 1912.

Following the 1912 sale, the glasshouses were all repaired and herbaceous borders were established in the walled garden.

The separate southern glasshouse was removed in 1932. Also in the 1930s the glass and timber superstructure of the original eastern glasshouse was rebuilt. During the Second World War the grounds around the house were neglected, but the walled garden remained in production.

In the 1970s easternmost glasshouse received an entirely new aluminium frame as a replacement for the earlier wooden structure.

In 1999 a partial restoration of the largely original Kilderbee-era glasshouse that survives on the western side of the central pair was undertaken.

Details

The walled garden stands to the north of Glemham House and was constructed between 1814 and 1823. It is contemporary with the house and may have been designed by Thomas Hopper.

MATERIALS: the walls are constructed of red brick laid in three different bonds (Sussex at the base, Flemish at mid-height, and monk bond for the upper courses). The glasshouses are built of timber or aluminium. The ancillary buildings are built of brick and timber. The melon pit is built of brick.

PLAN: the gardens form a nine-sided enclosure. They attach to the stable block on the south side. Facing south within the garden are a series of glasshouses. Several further ancillary buildings are attached to the outer face of the wall. The melon pit stands separately beyond the eastern walls of the garden.

DESCRIPTION: the walls have shallow four-stage buttresses on the exterior at and between each corner.

There are three original entrances: a boarded timber doorway at the south-east corner, adjacent to the stable yard, another in the centre of the north wall and one at the south-west corner. The latter features a late-C20 decorative metal gate. An additional doorway has been created in the north-west corner to provide access from a building on the outside wall which has been converted to a private residence.

The south wall is formed by the back of a low two storey building in the stable yard, also in red brick with a number of casement windows looking into the garden.

The Glasshouses:

There are four glasshouses along the north side of the garden, two each side of the northern doorway. The central pair were originally constructed in around 1829 or earlier. The western-central glasshouse was was extended before 1871 to form a single continuous glasshouse but was separated at the central corner in 1999. The glazing of these western glasshouses includes sliding sash roof vents. The earlier phase has narrowly spaced glazing bars and double-hung sashes, every pane is an angled parallelogram, 5° from perpendicular to the wall, and its horizontals are tilted 2°. Some original crown glass survives.

The eastern pair of glasshouses have undergone a greater degree of alteration. That nearest the doorway has a renewed timber structure, with windows operated by rods rather than sashes. The further glasshouse was largely rebuilt in the late C20, with a new alumninium frame above its original brick plinth.

The Ancillary Buildings:

On the wall behind the northern glasshouses is a succession of low, brick, slate-roofed lean-to buildings constructed at the same time as the walled garden. The gardeners’ bothy at the western end has been converted to a residence with an extension erected in 2009. Next to this is an apple store with louvred vents on the windows and wooden racking inside, followed by a tool shed next to the garden entrance. East of the entrance is a former mushroom house with shutters on the windows followed by the former boiler house with large pipe work, but boiler and flue removed, and a bothy at the eastern end.

The Melon Pit:

The melon pit is detached from the walls and lies a short distance to the east of the garden. It is rectangular in form, embedded in the ground, and forms a brick plinth that rises to the east. It is missing its original glass cover.

Sources

Books and journals
The Rougham Estate and Rougham Hall in Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History, ,Vol. 43, (2015), 418
Pevsner, Nikolaus, Bettley, James, The Buildings of England: Suffolk: East (2015), 258-9

Other
'In Good Hands: The endruance of a Regency Park & Garden at Glemham House, Great Glemham', by Gathorne Gathorne-Hardy (revised 2009).
Glemham House Walled Garden (Suffolk Gardens Trust Walled Kitchen Garden Recording Group report 2016)
Great Glemham House, report by Anthea Taigel, University of East Anglia, 1994
Kalendarium of the Rev. Thomas Mills, Rector of Stutton (1791-1879) vol. I, 1812-1819 [private collection]: p. 72.

End of official list entry