The Conservatory was constructed in 1885 by Crompton and Fawkes of Chelmsford, who described it as an 'iron winter garden' in their catalogue. It is a fragile and rare surviving Victorian glasshouse and urgently needs restoring. It attracted national interest, but sadly no restoration funding, when it finished in third place on the final of the BBC TV series 'Restoration', back in 2003.

The Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) has now (29 Sept 2009) given its approval to the Trust to work up exciting plans to restore the Conservatory. The restored structure will now form a 'gateway' to the estate's 60-acre Pleasure Gardens for both day and educational visitors. Development funding of £220,000 has been awarded to help progress this work.

This HLF first-round pass means that Wentworth Castle Trust can now progress to the second stage of the HLF application process. The Trust has up to two years to submit more detailed plans and apply for the £2,499.00 of HLF support that it is seeking for the £3,735,593 restoration of the Conservatory.

Crompton (Col REB) was born in North Yorkshire in 1845. After serving in the army and navy he came to Chelmsford in about 1877 and as Director of Stanton Ironworks set up a new iron foundry. In order to make it pay he had to keep it working 24hrs a day, and eventually met up with Frank Fawkes who was a hot water engineer. He was also a prolific author with his first book written in 1881 on Horticultural Buildings their Fitting etc. Another iron conservatory was built in Godalming, Surrey but the firm seems to have been mostly popular for its ordinary wooden ranges.

The conservatory would have been used for displaying some of the many exotic plants, including orchids, palms and ferns. There are still some old varieties of Camellia japonica growing inside, including a variety with red and white striped flowers, believed to be 'Contessa Lavinia Maggi', raised in 1858. If you look through the broken glass you can see the tiled floor, wrought iron grilles and cast iron heating pipes. The stone benches around the edge would have displayed pot plants, containing spring bulbs and summer flowering shrubs and annuals.

The building is seriously 'at risk', and we have now installed scaffolding to stabilise the structure to prevent further decay. Click here for more information on restoration plans.