Glasshouses

The glasshouses today give a reasonable representation of what would have been here originally. Glasshouses were built at Tatton from around the mid 1700’s with the trend for growing pineapples along with many other fruit including figs, apricots, grapes, peaches and nectarines.

The latest glasshouse restoration is that of the Pinery Vinery. This restored glasshouse is possibly the only genuine, rebuilt example of a Pinery Vinery in existence in Britain. It was originally designed by Samuel Wyatt during the heyday of the pineapple as a status symbol, when individual fruits were sold for the equivalent of £5,000 today.

Glasshouses however seemed to produce not only fruit for the table but also pot plants and cut flowers for the main house and the addition of orchid and general pot plant growing houses made this possible.

In its heyday, Tatton had as many as 20 orchid houses and one of those has now been restored with an extensive collection of orchids. It is hoped that in the future it will be able to replicate a small collection of some of the orchids introduced originally by James Bateman of Biddulph Grange, who was a close friend of the family. 

The family also enjoyed taking guests around the gardens and glasshouses and so to this end the conservatory, fernery and show house were built.

At present the conservatory is closed. However the fernery can be enjoyed with its extensive collection of ferns and tree ferns from New Zealand and Australia collected by one of the family, Captain Charles Randle Egerton.

The building was designed in the late 1850s by Joseph Paxton - famous for building Crystal Palace. 

The adjoining show house was designed as an area to ‘show off’ the latest flowering plant material in season at the time. This has continuously changing displays which can be enjoyed from spring to autumn.