Tag Archives: Conservatory

Palmed Off



The Palm House at the National Botanic Gardens, Glasnevin, Dublin. Sixty-five feet high, 80 feet wide and 100 feet long, and originally costing £800, the building dates from 1884 when prefabricated from wood and wrought-iron in Paisley, Scotland by the firm of James Boyd & Son. Shipped to Ireland in pieces, the palm house was then assembled on site to replace an earlier structure which had been almost universally condemned for its ugliness. The new version met with a more positive response from the public and lasted until the mid-1990s when a high wind blew in large sections of glass: it was then discovered that much of the building was in a dangerous condition. Following extensive restoration, the Palm House reopened to the public in 2004.


Restoration Glory



The conservatory at Kilshane, County Tipperary. The house dates from the 1820s when designed for the Lowe family by John Hargrave, a son of the successful Cork-based architect Abraham Hargrave. The curvilinear conservatory, thought to be the most ambitious of its kind to survive in Ireland, was added around 1860; while very much in the style of Richard Turner, it cannot with certainty be ascribed to him. Along with the house, it was restored by the present owners at the start of the present century.


A Skeleton


Born in Dublin in 1798, Richard Turner inherited the family ironworks which he developed to manufacture the glasshouses for which he became renowned: among the best-known examples of his work are the Palm Houses in Kew and Belfast Botanic Gardens, and the Curvilinear Range at the National Botanic Gardens in Glasnevin. His earliest commission in this area was for a conservatory at Colebrooke, County Fermanagh, believed to date from 1833. Like a giant skeleton the frame still survives but unfortunately almost all the glass has been lost, and while the present owners of the estate would much like to undertake a restoration, the cost of doing so is too prohibitive.