Page:An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture.djvu/1003

 CONSERVATORIES. 979 Fig. 1728 is one of the upright lights, six feet eight inches to the spring of the arch, and rising eight inches in the centre, fitting into a corresponding frame, and secured merely by three bolts, k k k ; j j are two windows, fourteen inches deep, each opening upon a horizontal pivot at its centre ; the panes of glass are four inches and a half by four inches. Fig. 1729 is a slight sketch of the elevation, with the doors and lights removed for the summer. The glazing of the roof is cur- Tlinear, each pane being only five inches and a half by four inches ; the laps are rather more than one eighth of an inch, with puttv between, except a small opening in the centre. Where the best crown glass is used, putty is unnecessary, where merely the usual conservatory temperature is wanted. Not only is the original cost, and the expense of repairs, considerably reduced by using fiames of small dimensions, but the risk of breakage from frost is completely avoided when the laps do not exceed one fourth of an inch. Though this house is forty- three feet by eighteen feet, the cost of the glazing did not amount to £50. Where the substratum of the soil does not afford a ready escape for the water from the beds, drains A k 1 I 1 1 j 1 1 7£S Til i ; l': i i should be made on the outside, and far below the foimdation of the house all round ; small openings being left in the foundation walls, to allow the water to pass off freely from the bottom of the beds. It is often more advisable to have the plants in pots plunged in the soil, than to plant them in the bed itself; as many species, if turned out of their pots into the free soil, are apt to make a profusion of wood, and to bear but little blossom. (Card. Mag., vol. ^^. p. 664.) 1960. As Examples of Architectural Conservatories detached from FiUa Dwellings, we may refer to those of Syon House and Alton Towers. The former, designed by Charles Fowler, Esq., is in the Italian style; the general plan is that of a crescent with a parallelogram centre surmounted by a dome sixty feet high, with two parallelograms terminating the extremities or wings. The central compartment is a stove conservatory, having glass on all sides, with the supports in the outside walls, of stone ; the upright glass of the wmgs is divided by stone piers on the south side, and the other walls are without openings. The whole of the framework containing the glass is of cast iron. A part of the roof in the centre is glazed with plate glass : the panes being large, and their inclination to the horizon being oblique, it was deemed advisable to employ this description of glass, in order the more eCFectually to resist hail. The detached conservatory at Alton Towers is seen in fig. 1429, § 1669; and fig. 1730 is its architectural elevation. The style may be considered as Grecian or Roman. The back wall is of opaque masonry, and the front has stone piers and architraves, filled in with cast and wrought iron and copper sashes. The roof and domes are also of iron- work, and copper, glazed. The whole is richly otnamented with vases and sculptures, and the domes are profusely gilt. The general effect is splendid to a degree, hardly, if at all, equalled in Britain ; and the plants within, which are partly those commonly grown in green-houses, and partly tropical or stove plants, being thinly planted, and allowed to attain a considerable size, are as prosperous as could be desired. This Design is in part the production of several Architects ; but chiefly, we believe, of Robert Abraham, Esq., and Thomas Allason, Esq. There is another detached conservatory at Alton, fig. 1731, designed by Mr. Abraham, the effect of which is remarkably good. There is also a conservatory at Alton Towers connected with the house, in the Gothic style, of large dimensions, but of simple Architecture, having externally the appearance of a plain cathedra], in which the plants are as prosperous as in the common shed-like glass cases of nurserymen. This consers-atory, when we saw it in 1831, was richly ornamented with choice sculptures, fountains, piscatories, vases, china jars, cages of singing-birds, and other suitable objects ; and, taken altogether, it was then tlic most splendid thing of