White Cottage reimagines Benthall Hall’s Victorian greenhouse
Craftsmen White Cottage Greenhouses has reinstated National Trust’s Benthall Hall’s walled kitchen garden Victorian greenhouse in Shropshire.
The reimagined greenhouse is just over 12m long and 4.3m wide, featuring new cold frames sitting on its original base wall, dated back to the 1900s.
Open to the public, the greenhouse will see an increase in the range of plants grown in the garden and revive the plant biologist and an original gardener George Maw’s Victorian plant collection from the 1860s.
In the pipeline for three years, Nick Swankie has been the gardener in charge determined to make this happen for over two decades.
The new design and build replicates the original Benthall glasshouses, fitting with White Cottage’s proprietary Victorian specification.
Tori Tomlin, director at White Cottage says, “we want our greenhouses to feel like they’ve always been there”.
The National Trust also comments:
“The general aesthetic is consistent and recognisable to visitors of National Trust properties and their glasshouses but with the intricacies of Benthall Hall intertwined.”
Visitors can experience how George Maw was using his greenhouses over 150 years ago.