The Greenhouse Project_Saturday May 23rd

The Greenhouse Project: Saturday

I was lying in bed this morning savouring the fact that it is a bank holiday weekend and musing about how everybody seems to do either DIY or gardening projects during bank holidays, when it hit me. I have an old greenhouse in dire need of some tlc. Why don’t I make that my weekend project? And so the ‘Greenhouse Project’ was born.

So, first things first, I ran outside with the camera, to capture just how much in need the poor place really was. It was a total disaster, and to be honest, I nearly caved in at the thought of how much work would be involved. Not only did the insides need clearing out, but it needed new benches, new windows (and frames – the old ones are completely rotten) and new roof panels as some of the corrugated plastic ones in place are broken and all of them are old and brittle. Not to mention the old grape vine, which has grown through the holes in the roof and behind the rafters!

The greenhouse itself is as old as the house, which makes it around 113 years old. At the front, which faces east, there is a low brick wall, with the windows on top of that. The north end is brick and there appears to have been a door in it (now bricked up) into the brick shed beyond. The south end is mostly wooden, but with a short section of brick, where it butts up to a chimney breast. There used to be a potting shed on the south end, but that fell down years ago (a future project, perhaps?) Entry to the greenhouse was through the shed.

The floor appears to have seen a few changes. Down the centre, there is a quarry tiled section. The edges I think used to be soil, but now it is concrete. 

There is a little sliding door in the brick part of the south end, about 4 or 5 feet from the ground. Inside, there is a lead lined flue, into the chimney breast. 

Between the chimney and the north end, pipes used to run along the wall, then turned through 90 degrees and went into the garage which is behind the greenhouse. These pipes have long gone, but the remains of them still stick out through the garage wall. They have now been stuffed with old plant pots, to prevent any potential wildlife from using them as a convenient entry point. 

Two of the roof beams are held up by huge metal brackets – another indication of its Edwardian/Victorian past. 

The roof is now corrugated plastic, but I think originally it was all metal frames and glass. There are hinges at the back edge of the roof, but nothing on them any more. On the chimney wall, there are a couple of brackets that once housed the mechanism for opening and closing the roof lights.