In the late 19th and early 20th century, the concept of preserving architectural heritage was in its infancy, and its inability to protect and preserve a tradition seen as moribund is a great loss that is felt to this day.
Whilst the concept of lost houses and lost heritage is primarily discussed in the context of the thousands of country homes that have either been demolished or reduced to rubble over the years, traditional conservatories also fall victim to demolition in the name of morose practicality.
The greatest example of a lost conservatory is the Great Conservatory which was formerly at Chatsworth House and designed by innovative architect Decimus Burton and highly-regarded former gardener Joseph Paxton, who would later go on to design Crystal Palace in a similar way.
At the time of its completion in 1841, it was the largest glasshouse in the world, designed to be a beautiful display of tropical flora, with aquatic plants, exotically coloured flowers, tropical trees such as the pineapple in an 84m long building that stood 19m high.
It was so long and wide, in fact, that two carriages could drive side-by-side through the glasshouse and explore the entire breadth of the garden.
It achieved the warm conditions needed for the plants to thrive through the use of eight underground coal-powered boilers and seven miles of piping.
Unfortunately, its vast power requirements would become its undoing. In 1914, the onset of the First World War meant that vital resources such as coal were unlikely to be supplied to heat conservatories.
By the end of the war, the Great Conservatory was in a state of disrepair, almost all of the tropical plants died and it did not look like there would be much chance of it being reused in the same way, the Great Conservatory was demolished.
This, combined with the fire that destroyed Crystal Palace meant that a huge part of Britain’s conservatory heritage was lost in less than a decade.