Dear Fiona: why do people turn their noses up at conservatories?

Dear Fiona,

I really want a conservatory. And as we head into October, the longing is only increasing. I want to pick up my cup of coffee, and, without leaving my house, be able to walk into an outside room, and either bask in late summer sun, or enjoy hearing the patter of rain on the roof while inside I’m cosy and dry. I can picture a generous chair with squashy cushions, and huge expanses of window so that I feel that I’m almost in our genuinely lovely garden (our house is 1930s, and the windows are quite high up so that when I’m sitting down in the sitting room, I’m look over the garden rather than into it). More practically, the downstairs of our house is quite tight, and it would be good to have an overflow room when we’re entertaining (especially at Christmas.) It would also be a nice home for the plants that have to come inside during the winter months.

But I’m concerned that conservatories are now an impossibility – I’ve seen so many articles about how they devalue your property (and I don’t know if we’ll live here forever – we might want to sell it one day) - and actually they might even be illegal. I’m a bit confused, and every time I mention my desire for a conservatory to anyone, they literally shriek in horror.

My husband has suggested that we have a garden room instead, separate from the house, but that sounds like a glorified shed (and I’d have to walk outside to get to it so I’m not sure when I’d use it) and a friend has suggested an orangery (which sounds lovely, but is there a difference? Or is it just a smarter word for the same thing?)

What do you advise? Can I still have a conservatory? Should I consider the other options? Does it matter if I devalue my house?

Thank you so much,

A Garden Lover XX

Dear Garden Lover,

Conservatories really have become a minefield, haven’t they? The vital thing to understand is that there are conservatories, and conservatories, and there exists a sliding scale of desirability between the two types. “I don’t object to a conservatory in principal,” says Rupert Cunningham, who heads up Ben Pentreath’s architectural practice – but, as you’ve experienced, many do. For them, the word doubtlessly conjures up images of the plastic-framed versions that appeared as double-glazed carbuncles on the sides of all sorts of houses throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. The advertisements promised a Good Life-type dream of extra space at a fraction of the cost of any other extension (particularly if you chose a self-build option), and the special offers that littered the back pages of weekend colour supplements inevitably showed smiling couples reclining on ‘conservatory furniture’ (a genuine subset), self-congratulatory glass in hand. ‘A Room For All Occasions,’ promised one such ad. But, as we all know, they weren’t. “Within months, the view out was cloudy with trapped condensation, it was either boiling or freezing, and it just became a dumping ground for chairs with broken legs, and musical instruments we’d stopped playing, and the worst thing was that when we were in the garden we could look at our collective failures in DIY and self-improvement through the glass – which was itself another failing,” remembers a friend who grew up with one.

But that was then, and while memories do linger – and it’s those examples that can wipe as much as £15,000 off the value of a property – to answer your question we need both to look back at the beginnings of conservatories, and to examine what conservatories can be now, whether they’re conservatories, garden rooms, glass houses or orangeries. (Shakespeare couldn’t possibly have predicted the subtle nuances of inside-outside rooms when he wrote that oft-repeated line, ‘what’s in a name?’)

Actually, the name is a good place to start. The word conservatory comes from the Italian conservato, which means stored or preserved – and their first use in this country was in conserving exotic plant collections from cold weather – just as you’d like to use yours. However, they were not connected to houses; witness the Palladian-columned Nash Conservatory at Kew, which was originally designed for Buckingham Palace by John Nash in 1825, and the Palm House at Kew, designed by Decimus Burton and completed in 1844. The former is simply a stone building with more glass than usual, the latter with its iron frame is what we know now as a glass house, and when in 1845 the tax levied on the weight of glass was lifted, and in 1856 Henry Bessemer invented the Bessemer converter which enabled steel to be produced more cheaply than before, those glass house conservatories took off – at least amongst the very wealthy. But despite the survival of the examples of Kew, most were haunted by the issues suffered by their less attractive late 20^th-century progeny. The Great Conservatory at Chatsworth was dismantled in 1920 as it had needed ten men to run it and huge quantities of coal to heat it (there were eight boilers), and during the Great War when the gardeners went off to fight and coal had not been available, all the plants died.

The failings make it all the more impressive that we were determined to try again – evidently, we’re a nation that loves the idea of inside-outside space. Increasing the pull is their significance in history and literature, whether that’s Sir Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace, built for the Great Exhibition of 1851 (and based on that Great Conservatory at Chatsworth - Paxton was the Duke of Devonshire’s garden superintendent) or their mention in the works of a host of writers, including Oscar Wilde (Dorian Grey sat ‘in the conservatory at Selby Royal, talking to the pretty Duchess of Monmouth.’) What’s more, inventions such as double-glazing and underfloor heating suggested that, second time around, a conservatory should not have encountered such stratospheric running costs. Alas, in many cases (see the first paragraph) we were wrong. One of the major issues is that, along the way, the design spec changed. Instead of being part of the garden, conservatories became part of the house, opening into the house, relying on the same heating system as the house – but without proper insulation. Clearly, it was a recipe for disaster. So yes, there are new rules for conservatories, that came into being last summer. A specialist will be better place to advise you (names to look at include David Salisbury, Malbrook, Oakwrights, Vale Garden Houses, Westbury Garden Rooms, and, recommends Rupert, the French company Serres et Ferroneries d’Antan) but the main things to think about are that the area of glazing cannot exceed 25% of the floor area (this is to prevent it becoming boiling in the summer), external walls or windows must separate the conservatory from the house, and it has to have its own independent heating system. While of course there have been exceptions, and there are exquisitely beautiful, well-functioning conservatories that were built in the 1980s (and some might have been better at self-build than others) you could see the new rules as making the endeavour third time lucky for the masses. Finally we’ve mastered their build, so yes, you can have a conservatory.

But should you consider other options? Let’s go back to names, because although colloquially the words conservatory, orangery and garden room are almost interchangeable, there are some subtle distinctions. Orangeries have flat, solid roofs with a glass lantern in the middle, while conservatories have a pitched roof that is at least 75% glass. Orangeries usually have more brick in them, too – and you’d have thought that they would also need oranges growing in them, but apparently that is not the case. (As to whether they’re perceived to be smarter – there was an ‘orangery envy’ storyline in Coronation Street. You can make of that what you will.) To continue, garden rooms are typically separate entities and have a completely solid roof (not unlike the original Nash Conservatory – though at the other end of the spectrum are, indeed, sheds) though Rupert Cunningham explains that they can be part of the house; “we often do garden room extensions that have glazed sides and a solid roof to stop them overheating.”

Ultimately, as with so many decorating issues, it comes down to aesthetics and execution, and if you do it well, you won’t devalue your house, but add to it – and, more importantly, add to your joy of living in it. Only you know if you will use a separate garden room; it might be lovely to trip across the grass, admiring your borders as you go, and enjoy pre-dinner drinks there, which John Fowler used to do with his garden room at the Hunting Lodge, but I do see that it might not be the overflow that you were looking for over Christmas (unless you’ve got children of a certain age, who could temporarily take it over as a playroom, thus freeing up more space in the house for grownups.) Only you know if it might be a better idea to plan a proper extension – with lower windows than your house – and if perhaps installing a small greenhouse (or glasshouse à la 19^th century version) might be a preferable solution for the plants that need to come inside over the winter, because it’s tricky to design a room that is all things to all people. Before going much further, I’d suggest that you look through the House & Garden conservatory archive, which is full of all sorts of ideas. You could incorporate a fireplace, choose a floral fabric for the blinds that will keep the room cool in the summer, have a ‘vinery’ (a variation on an orangery, which definitely requires growing vines.) The possibilities for the atmosphere that you describe longing for in your letter are endless, I have no doubt you’ll make it beautiful, and I’d love to see images when it’s built.

I hope that this helps,

With love,

Fiona XX