Garden Walls, Attached Outbuildings And Gates At Wollaton Hall

Garden walls, attached outbuildings, and gates at Wollaton Hall date from 1783-88, with additions in the mid-19th century and 20th century. The red brick walls, with sandstone copings, enclose a roughly parallelogram-shaped area of about 125 metres square, standing approximately 3.8 metres high. Two central gateways are located to the south and centre of the site, with two further gateways to the north dividing a wall into three sections. Smaller gateways are present on the east and west walls, with the western gateway blocked, and a former wide access into the demolished Gothick Glasshouse also blocked. Three walls were heated, including a south wall, an east wall, and an incomplete wall dividing nursery gardens. These heated walls are internally divided by three bands of horizontal flues. The north wall was designed to support lean-to glasshouses or hot houses, though none remain. A high-level timber casement window is present, set within a rubbed brick arch and featuring a projecting stone keystone. On the north-west side are two lean-to bothies with pantile and concrete tile roofs and plain tile eaves bands. These feature two plank doors and nine two-light windows. A group of store sheds follows, with irregular window placement, and then a lean-to mushroom house with ten windows, most including glazing bars. The nursery garden includes an early and extensive range of heated walls, designed for fruit trees. The garden’s layout reflects its use, with foundations laid in 1783 and the garden stocked with French fruit trees from March 1784. Ranges of structures, including an Orangery, Musa House, and Pine House, were added between 1860 and 1865. An inventory of plants from 1867 and an Ordnance Survey map from 1880 document the site’s history.