If you want a Victorian style orangery at your home, you may be looking around for different ideas and stylistic elements, all of which our designers can include in the bespoke product you will end up with.
Although the scale of the grander orangeries at historic buildings won’t be something you can replicate at a typical home, there may still be stylistic elements you can take inspiration from.
For that reason, some may take an interest in the restoration of the orangery at Blenheim Palace, home of the Duke of Marlborough and the birthplace of Winston Churchill.
The building itself is a lot older than Victorian, being over 300 years old. But over the years various parts will have been added and adjusted, a process that is still going on today. The orangery’s glass ceiling is a 19th century structure, which replaced the previous slate roof.
Part of that saw the orangery turned into a restaurant, but currently this is closed until September, with visitors currently getting to dine in a glass conservatory with the option of eating on the lawn when the weather is favourable. This conservatory itself might give visitors some ideas, but it will be the restored orangery that some will be keen to view when it is unveiled in the early autumn.
However, as The i reported last month, the key reason for renovating the orangery is linked to climate change. The current glass roof is not expected to be able to withstand the twin prospects of extremely hot summer days and extreme rainstorms predicted by many experts to be the future. Its replacement will be architecturally atavistic, with slate once again in place.
It may be, therefore, that any inspiration taken from the Blenheim orangery in future will be from internal design features, rather than its roof. But it also shows that the glass in your home orangery may benefit from being tinted and double glazed to limit the effects of heat and heavy rain in the future, ensuring climate change does not prevent you from enjoying having a great orangery.