Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/1001

 CONSERVATORIES. 977 remarkably well in this manner. Indeed, in our opinion, where conservatory plants are not grown in the free soil, this mode is preferable to any other j because the allusion to natural scenery is more complete. 1 956. Construction. The walls of the conservatory should always be formed of the same material as those of the house to which it belongs ; because this is favourable to the principle of unity of effect. Cast iron, however, is in many cases extensively em- ployed as standards between the upright sashes ; and, in this case, the harmony may be preserved by the introduction of stone or brick piers at the angles, or on each side of a central door, or projection, or recess. In the conservatory of Mr. Mallet's Design for a villa, fig. 1660, there is a great deal of ironwork exposed to view; but, by the intro- duction of stone piers, a stone architrave, and a considerable mass of walling behind the central semi-dome, the harmony is perfectly preserved. There is one point in the con- struction of conservatories which ought never to be neglected ; and that is, as we have before observed, to form the roof wholly of glass. Without perpendicular light no plant whatever, and more especially no tree or shrub, will ever grow and look well. To be convinced of this, it is only necessary to observe the plants grown in conservatories in which the roof is partially or wholly opaque ; they will be found, even in the most favourable cases, only to look well on one side. Provided the roof of a conservatory be wholly of glass, the walks broad, so as to allow of a free circulation of air round the trees, and provided the cost of fuel for keeping it at a temperature of 50^ during the winter months be no object, it signifies much less than is generally imagined what may be either the aspect or the position of the conservatory. The floor of the consers-atory, where the plants are to stand in tubs and boxes, may be paved ; but, where they are to be planted in the ground, space and sufficient drainage will be required for a bed of soil of five or six feet in depth. As there must be walks between the beds, piers should be carried up from the bottom, to support the pavement, or iron grating, which may form those walks. 1957. The Mode of heating Conservatories is commonly by smoke flues, or tubes of steam or hot water carried under the paths. Other modes have been practised ; such as flues or tubes above the surface, cisterns, or cylinders of steam or hot water, and the introduction of hot air from cockle stoves ; but no plan, in our opinion, is so suit- able as that of introducing whatever medium may be adopted for conveying the heat, under the pathways ; having such an arrangement of openings in the top or sides of the paths as will insure a circulation of air round the heating body. Without this circu- lation to carry off the heat from the tubes or flues, heat will be given out so slowly to the house, that in severe weather it will hardly be possible to keep up the proper tem- perature. The circulation may be produced by enclosing the tubes, for a considerable length, by the walling which supports the pavement of the path ; and by having an opening at the bottom of the funnel formed by this walling at one end, and another and larger opening at the other end, in its top, or in the pavement over it, for the escape of the heated air. In a conservatory of considerable length and breadth, in which the tubes are conducted round the floor, and also along the middle of the house, there may be several systems of circulation of this kind ; say, for example, one for every thirty feet in length of the steam or hot-water tuljes. These systems may be so arranged as that the openings for the escape of heated air, and those for the drawing in of the lower stratum of the air of the house, in order that it may be re-heated, may be regularly distributed over the floor of the conservatory. This has been admirably eflfected by Mr. Kewley, in the magnificent conservatory heated by him at Clarence Lodge. From not attending to this mode of can-ying off the heat from flues and tubes sunk under the floors of conservatories, some have been imperfectly heated, and others heated at a much greater expense of tubes than would have been at all necessary by a proper plan. This subject is better understood by INIr. Kewley than by most of the engineers who heat by hot water or steam jn the neighbourhood of London ; but a little attention to the plan of Mr. Perkins for accelerating the production of steam by metallic linings to boilers, will at once show the importance of it, and teach the manner of carrying it into execution. (See Gard. Mag., vol. viii. p. 294.) In modern conservatories it is not un- common to see the tubes or flues for heating, forming conspicuous objects along the walks ; than which we can hardly conceive any thing more unsuitable to the idea of an ornamental structure. It would be better far to have no conservatory at all, than to see it thus reduced to the level of a nurseryman's show-house, or the forcing-house of a kitchen-garden. A conservatory so constructed as not completely to conceal the mode by which it is heated, is one of the most imperfect of villa appendages. Before the mode of heating by hot water or steam was invented, there might have been, comjjara- tively, some excuse for not concealing flues ; but now that we have Perkins's mode of heating by hot water, by which the largest house may be heated by tubes not above an inch in diameter, deformities of the kind mentioned are inexcusable. I'uir.ps, cisterns, 5 V