The Orangery in Georgian Scotland

On December 5, 2017August 16, 2018 By SarahmurdenIn Guests5 Comments

We are absolutely thrilled to be welcoming back the author Regan Walker whose latest book has just been released – A Secret Scottish Christmas and today she’s written a guest blog about orangeries.

Whether you call them orangeries, hothouses, greenhouses or conservatories, buildings in which plants were allowed to grow in an environment sheltered from the weather were much in vogue in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. In the warm air of these glassed buildings, one could grow flowers (oleander, hibiscus, lily of the valley and camellias, among others), vegetables (kale would have been popular in Scotland), oranges and other citrus as well as other fruits (cherries, peaches, plums, pomegranates and figs). Perhaps most favoured of all were the exotic pineapples.

Orangery at Dyrham Park in South Gloucestershire, England

The name “orangery” reflects the original use of the building as a place where citrus trees were often wintered in tubs under cover, surviving through harsh frosts and snow, as they do in my story, A Secret Scottish Christmas. It is there the heroine often takes her morning runs.

The Romans are credited with the first greenhouses to grow fruits and vegetables, but the Italians are given credit for the orangery during the Renaissance when glassmaking techniques enabled sufficiently large expanses of clear glass to be produced. Though some in Scotland imported citrus trees from Spain, at least one of my sources said it was from Italy the Scots imported small budded orange trees.

Originally built to protect Queen Anne’s citrus trees from the harmful winter weather, orangeries in Britain became status symbols among the wealthy in Scotland as well as England. Early orangeries were built as extensions to the house, heated by charcoal braziers. But, as time went on, it became the fashion to have a separate “greenhouse” and, after 1816 when hot water heating came into being, the heating source might be outside the building.

Orangery at Heveningham Hall in Suffolk built about 1760, designed by the architect Samuel Wyatt

Growing Pineapples in a “Pinery”

Discovered by Christopher Columbus in the Caribbean in 1493, pineapples became a rare delicacy in Europe and were associated with power, wealth, and hospitality. In Britain, the practice of bringing pineapples to the dining table was not just for the aristocracy but extended to the gentry. The list of gentlemen engaged in this horticultural activity includes such notables of Georgian society as the poets William Cowper and Alexander Pope and the architect Lord Burlington.

The pineapple was a testament to the owner’s wealth and to his gardener’s skill and experience. Producing a crop of tropical fruit in Scotland before the advent of the hot water heating system in 1816 was a remarkable achievement. Several varieties were grown, but the one most common in Scotland was the Queen pine.

The Dunmore Pineapple, a folly ranked “as the most bizarre building in Scotland”, is located in Stirlingshire, Scotland. Dunmore Park, the ancestral home of the Earls of Dunmore, includes a building containing a hothouse constructed in 1761 by John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore. There, among other plants, he grew pineapples.

The south-facing ground floor was originally covered with glass windows. The heat was provided by a furnace-driven system that circulated hot air through cavities in the wall. The smoke from the furnace was expelled through four chimneys cleverly disguised as Grecian urns.

Sir James Justice, an 18th-century Scottish horticulturalist and gardener, developed an incredibly efficient glasshouse on his estate at Crichton, combining the bark pits for succession and fruiting plants under one roof. In a letter to Philip Miller and other members of the Royal Society in 1728, he proudly announced,

I have eight of the Ananas in fine fruit.

Glasshouse cultivation was an important part of 18th-century horticulture and many of the inventions we now take for granted were developed or refined during this period, such as the use of angled glazing, spirit thermometers and the furnace-heated greenhouses called hothouses.

Young pineapple plants were often grown in “tan pits” lined with pebbles at the bottom followed by a layer of manure and then topped with a layer of tanners’ bark into which the pots were plunged. The tanners’ bark, oak bark soaked in water and used in leather tanning, was the most important as it fermented slowly, steadily producing a constant temperature for two to three months. It remained in use until the end of the 19th century.

Three developments changed pineapple cultivation: hot water heating in 1816 (allowing the stove and its fumes to be located outside the orangery), sheet glass in 1833, and the abolition of the glass tax in 1845. With these, glasshouses for pineapple cultivation became very large structures.

Enjoy your trip through the orangery at the Stephen estate in Arbroath, Scotland in A Secret Scottish Christmas!

Spies and Scots and Shipmasters, oh my!

Scotland 1819

Twin brothers Nash and Robbie Powell of Powell & Sons Shipping, London, sail with their fellow Agents of the Crown to Scotland for a secret celebration of Christmastide, a holiday long frowned upon by the Scottish Kirk. But more than Christmas is being kept secret. The two brothers have accepted an assignment from the Home Secretary Lord Sidmouth to ferret out a fugitive fomenting rebellion among the Scots.

Aileen Stephen, the only daughter of an Aberdeen shipbuilder, had to be clever, devious and determined to gain her place in the family business. She succeeded to become a designer of highly coveted ships. One night, a man’s handsome face appears to her in a dream. When two men having that same face arrive on a ship full of Londoners, Ailie wonders what her second sight is telling her. Is the face she saw a portender of the future, a harbinger of danger, or both? And which of the two Englishmen is the one in her dream?

Older than Nash by a mere five minutes, Robbie has always been protective of his twin. When he realizes Nash is attracted to the sister of their Scottish host, he thinks to help matters along. But Nash wants no help from his brother, not where Ailie Stephen is concerned because Robbie is attracted to the girl himself!

Two brothers vie for the affection of the Scottish lass but only one stirs her passion. Which one will it be? And what will she do when she learns they are spies?

Discover more on the links below:

Regan’s website

Amazon links to buy Regan’s book:

To buy in the US, click here

To buy in the UK, click here

To buy in Canada, click here

To buy in Australia, click here

Regan’s Facebook page

Pinterest Storyboard for the book

Find on Goodreads

References:

An Account of British Horticulture, drawn up for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia by Patrick Neill, 1817

The Brother Gardeners: Botany, Empire and the Birth of an Obsession by Andrea Wulf

The Science of Horticulture including A Practical System for the Management of Fruit Trees by Joseph Hayward, 1818

Gardener’s Magazine by J.C. Loudon, 1839

Hardwood Orangeries

Glasshouses: A History in Pictures – The Telegraph

Dunmore Park – Wikimedia

A Taste for the Exotic: Pineapple Cultivation in Britain – Building Conservation

18th-century orangery – Jane Austen’s World

A Scottish Pineapple – JK Gillon

A Taste for Pineapple – The World of Heyerwood

Vintage Christmas Flowers – Growing with Plants

The Georgians: What they ate

On July 10, 2015May 5, 2022 By SarahmurdenIn Guests17 Comments

Once again we are absolutely delighted to welcome a return guest to our blog, the lovely Regan Walker, who has written another fascinating article for us. This time she has looked at a subject which is very close to our hearts – food!

ReganWalker_ToTametheWind - 800px — “A sea adventure like no other, a riveting romance!” – Shirlee Busbee, NY Times Bestselling Author

For more information and snippets from Regan’s book please see the links at the bottom of the page.

Luis Meléndez (1716–1780), Still Life with Apples, Grapes, Melons, Bread, Jug and Bottle

While doing research for my story, To Tame the Wind, the prequel to my Agents of the Crown trilogy, I was reminded how well the Georgians ate, even in the 18^th century, particularly if they were people of means and had access to a large country garden.

Beginning in the late 1600s, many in the English aristocracy sent their cooks to France to learn to cook, but apparently the experiment was of mixed success (though I daresay England’s kitchens benefitted from the French Revolution when many refugees fled North). Eliza Smith, one of the early female cookbook writers, was not complimentary of French cooking, but Hannah Glasse, whose The Art of Cooking Made Plain and Easy was possibly the most successful cookbook of the 18^th century, must have felt differently as she included French recipes.

Glasse's Art of Cookery with 1748 signature — Glasse’s Art of Cookery with 1748 signature

By 1758, modern cooking techniques began to emerge with Sarah Phillips’ The Ladies Handmaid wherein she instructs cooks to use the minimum liquid and minimum cooking times for vegetables, sounding very modern. Artichokes and French beans were popular, as were cucumbers.

If one had land to cultivate a garden, the French company Vilmorin-Andrieux & Cie, Paris merchants, would assist with the first catalog of seeds for kitchen garden vegetables, including legumes, salad plants, flower seeds and bulbs published in 1766.

Many estate owners maintained extensive gardens and orchards. In the second half of the 18^th century, they used canals to transport produce where such were available. Late in the century, the roads improved and transport was made easier. Thus London’s markets benefitted from produce grown elsewhere.

As for bread, a staple of life then as now, the population seemed to prefer white bread to dark bread. Farmers grew more wheat to meet the demand for white wheaten bread. When bad weather hit in the second half of the century, grain was either imported or bread was supplemented with other cereals, not popular with the people. In 1767, Arthur Young commented, “rye and barley bread are looked upon with horror even by the poor cottagers.”

For breakfast, the gentry ate enriched, fruited spice breads or cakes and lightly spiced buns flavored with caraway seeds served hot and buttered. Muffins were also popular in the North from the 1770s. If one was of a mind to spread something on the bread, there was butter, honey, marmalade and jams made from various fruits, such as raspberries, cherries and apples.

Breakfast might include kippers. I’ve had them and, personally, once was enough. Kippers are usually herring or a young salmon split, cleaned, boned, dried, and rubbed with salt and pepper, then fried or baked and served hot at the breakfast table. The kippers I had were baked herring. After one bite, I asked the waiter to take the fish away. My traveling companion thanked me.

Boiled oatmeal with butter, called “gruel” could be served at breakfast with cream as it is today, but it was also served in the evening.

Chocolate was a hot drink thought to make women fertile. How clever. No wonder we love the solid stuff today!

As for other meals, there was soup, stews and meat if you could afford it.

White soup contained veal stock, cream and almonds. Sometimes it was thickened with rice or breadcrumbs. On the streets of London, vendors hawked both pease pudding and pea soup.

Lobscouse, a stew of meats and vegetables was familiar to seamen and could be quite varied. (Stew was a frequent dish on the Fairwinds, my hero’s ship in To Tame the Wind).

What did they eat for the main course at dinner? Well, if one could afford it, mutton and beef to be sure. During the first half of the century, thousands of cattle found their way to Smithfield Market in London each year. The meat was not always of good quality, however. The Duke of Bedford had sheep and cattle driven up from his estate at Woburn and parked in the fields outside his London house so he did not have to shop at Smithfield. They had to be guarded against thieves, however.

Many different types of meat were consumed, sometimes at the same meal, among them beef sirloin, venison, mutton, ham, bacon, hare (rabbit), chicken, geese, turkey, pigeons, ducks and partridge. An Irish gentleman travelling in England in 1752 had a “very good supper”, consisting of “veal cutlets, pigeons, asparagus, lamb and salad, apple-pie and tarts.” An Irish Gentleman, Journey through England, 1752.

Fish would have been consumed, as well, depending on where you lived. Salmon and tuna were among those recorded as well as shellfish, such as oysters. (Lobster was cheap because they were so numerous.)

For supper, the fare might be cold meats and a hunk of Cheddar cheese. There were many types of cheese available, too.

The English loved their puddings, both then and now, both savory and sweet. Even officers on ships liked them. And syllabub, a drink containing cider or wine sweetened with nutmeg, milk and cream, was enjoyed.

Fruit was surprisingly varied. Open-air markets might sell fruit as they do today, but other shops featured fruit as well. Sophie de la Roche, a German visitor to London in 1786, wrote about her stroll down Oxford Street. After commenting on the many shops, she noted:

“Just as alluring are the confectioners and fruiterers, where, behind the handsome glass windows, pyramids of pineapples, figs, grapes, oranges and all manner of fruits are on show.”

When it was warm, ices were much desired. Although they had been known in England since the late 17^th century, ices were made popular by French and Italian confectioners setting up shops in London in the mid 18^th century. Some varieties that are fashionable in modern times, such as brown bread and pistachio, date from this period. There were also ices made with elderflowers, jasmine, white coffee, tea, pineapple, barberries and a host of other unusual flavors. Yum!

In 1757, an Italian pastry cook named Domenico Negri opened a shop on Berkeley Square under the sign of “The Pot and Pineapple”. The pineapple was a symbol of luxury and used extensively as a logo for confectioners. Negri’s impressive trade card not only featured a pineapple, but it advertised that he was in the business of making English, French and Italian wet and dry sweetmeats. In To Tame the Wind the heroine and her friend, Lady Danvers, make a special stop at Negri’s to procure some sweetmeats.

Negri's PineApple Ice Cream shop — Negri’s PineApple Ice Cream shop

What to drink? Well, tea was the national drink, but expensive. Coffee houses flourished and no wonder. Men thought it improved their sexual prowess. Wine might accompany a wealthy man’s dinner. A good wine cellar might include Champagne, Claret (Bordeaux), Sherry, Port and Madeira. Punches were popular, too, cold or warmed and often spiced. (This may have been one of the uses for the stores of nutmegs, ginger, cloves and cinnamon.) The populace drank ale. And we can’t forget wassail at Christmastide.

Altogether it was a rich fare!

Paris 1782…AN INNOCENT IS TAKEN

All Claire Donet knew was the world inside the convent walls in Saint-Denis. She had no idea her beloved papa was a pirate. But when he seized Simon Powell’s schooner, the English privateer decided to take the one thing his enemy held most dear… her.

A BATTLE IS JOINED

The waters between France and England roil with the clashes of Claire’s father and her captor as the last year of the American Revolution rages on the sea, spies lurk in Paris and Claire’s passion for the English captain rises.

Links to purchase Regan’s book can be found by clicking on the links below

Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/Tame-Wind-Agents-Crown-Book-ebook/dp/B00VO4DZYE

Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tame-Wind-Agents-Crown-Book-ebook/dp/B00VO4DZYE

Website: http://www.reganwalkerauthor.com/

Blog: http://reganromancereview.blogspot.com/

Twitter: @RegansReview (https://twitter.com/RegansReview)

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/regan.walker.104

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6450403.Regan_Walker