Glass house revival

The glasshouses at Fota Arboretum and Gardens in Co Cork are being extensively restored and will open to the public later this year, writes JANE POWERS

VISITORS TO Fota Arboretum and Gardens in Co Cork are familiar with the tree collection: the hundreds of exotic species that have been planted here since the Smith Barry family first began collecting in the 1840s. They have stood on the edge of the small, jungly lake to watch the heron fishing, and the shy moorhen skulking in the lily pads. They have stepped into the orangery and inhaled the perfume of waxy citrus blooms, and they have wandered through the fig-tree embellished gate into the walled garden. But how many would have been aware that another secret space, yet another sheltered enclosure, exists just behind this walled compound?

Until last November it was a near-derelict place, where brambles and ivy and and self-seeded trees romped and swelled in the moist Cork air. Deep in their feral grasp, a gathering of glasshouses, or rather, their skeletal frames, struggled to stay upright. Their bleached timbers held snag-toothed shards of glass, and inside their bony, sway-backed frames, cast-iron staging collapsed onto the black-and-red terracotta tiles.

A sure case for the bulldozer and skip, one might think – with a few nice bits of salvageable period detail as a bonus. But no, this glasshouse complex is too important for that. Although damaged, the buildings are a cohesive (albeit falling down) and rare example of an early Edwardian frameyard – an important part of the Irish Big House horticultural operation. Here, the family’s gardeners would have sown seeds and rooted cuttings for the displays of bedding plants in the adjacent walled garden. They would have grown tender crops for the table: tomatoes, cucumbers, grapes, and perhaps even melons and pineapples. Potted plants such as geraniums, begonias, ferns and palms may have been nurtured here and brought into the house when they were looking their best. A giant coal-fired boiler in a sunken pit (now a broken down and rusty behemoth crouching in its cave) would have supplied heat along the system of thick pipes that still snake through many of the houses.

Late last year, the big restoration began under the watchful eye of the the Irish Heritage Trust (IHT), which is the present guardian of both Fota House and the glasshouse complex (the last of the Smith Barry clan to own the property was Mrs Dorothy Bell, who died in 1975). In 2007 the charitable trust acquired Fota House, where it has been carrying out a sensitive refurbishment, and in time it will take over the rest of the gardens and the arboretum (currently managed by the Office of Public Works), so that the property will be administered as a single entity.

The glasshouse restoration is part of a €2.5 million project, with €1.7 million coming from Fáilte Ireland, and the rest being raised by the IHT. Conservation architect John O’Connell and his team are in charge, while the work is being carried out by specialists Cornerstone Construction. Horticultural consultant Finola Reid has advised on maintaining the authenticity of the glasshouses and the adjacent bothy (gardeners’ accommodation).

The first phase of the work, faithfully restoring the bothy, four Edwardian hothouses, and three later glasshouses, is well under way. It is a multifaceted job, requiring advanced building skills, utmost meticulousness, and a strong stomach (this last, thanks to the dead rabbits that had drowned in the many ground-level water tanks). All the parts of each house are carefully catalogued before being dismantled, and then each building is reconstructed, from the ground up. Every viable brick (from the local Belvelly brickworks), tile, slate slab, cast-iron support and other intact component is re-used. Where replacements are needed, salvaged material is sought.

But the greatest miracle of this project is in the century-old timbers. From Sweden, Norway and Russia, they were the best that the glasshouse makers, W Richardson Co, from Darlington in Durham, could find. The company, which had a staunch Quaker work ethic, was a leader in glasshouse construction, erecting hothouses, greenhouses, orchid houses – all manner of plant houses – all over Europe at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. Although some of the wood had fallen foul of decades of neglect and the Irish weather, much of it, after being dried out in special kilns, has proved re-usable. Carefully spliced with a modern, treated wood product, trademarked Accoya, the old timbers are rising again, strong and true.

When these seven houses are finished, they will be planted up anew. There is much debate as to how that will be, and who will look after them, but there will certainly be an educational element, something that the IHT is strong on. In the meantime, there are more glasshouses – 12 lean-tos urgently needing restoration, and the means to fund it.

If you're in the south . . .

. . . do visit one of the 12 gardens or three garden centres on the Waterford Garden Trail, which runs through one of this country's most unspoilt counties (waterfordgarden.trail)

Get your hard hat on

The glasshouse restoration in the frameyard at Fota House will be open for hard-hat tours later this year (details will be available on the website, fotahouse.com). The gardens and arboretum are open daily, 9am-5pm, admission is free