Vinery at The Grove

Vinery at The Grove

This vinery was built in 1914 to the design of Messenger and Company Ltd, a Loughborough-based horticultural building manufacturer.

The building is constructed of red brick laid in English bond, with a glazed timber frame and partial roof covering of red clay pantiles. It is built against the south side of the boundary wall to The Grove and has a long rectangular plan comprising four distinct sections: an open timber frame shed, a potting shed with glass roof, an intermediate house, and the vinery itself.

The four-bay, three-quarter span vinery features a sloping roof of vertical wooden bars infilled with large, overlapped scalloped glass panes designed to channel rainwater away from the glazing bars. On the west side is an open shed with a hipped, pantile-clad roof supported by timber posts. The front wall of the second bay (the potting shed) is red brick with a single course of vitrified brick along the bottom and is pierced by a two-light sliding sash window. The longer third and fourth bays (intermediate house and vinery) have a brick plinth with the same vitrified brick detailing, upon which rests a series of twelve-light, bottom-opening windows operated by the firm's patented spring lever system. A glazed, gabled porch rises above the roof slope in the middle of these two bays, terminating in a finial which may be a later addition. The door has a lower recessed panel of vertical timbers and four large lights above.

The east wall is formed by the wall of an adjoining service building which contains a milk separating room with a metalled ceiling. The rear wall is formed by the roughly squared and coursed ironstone boundary wall, above which rises four courses of red brick to provide the necessary height. The rear slope of the west bay is covered in pantiles and has a red brick chimney stack.

The interior retains a high proportion of the original mechanisms for ventilation, heating and watering. The ventilation system allows the upper roof lights to be raised and lowered using a long rod connected to the opening lights and operated by a lever stamped with the manufacturer's name. The potting shed is partitioned longitudinally by a brick wall (not up to ceiling height) and contains a sunken area for the boiler, which is not in situ but has been retained. This is a No. 44 Quorn boiler which retains its original damper mechanism. In the third bay are cast iron heating pipes in the centre and sunken pipes under a grille. This bay also contains an underground water storage tank with a working water pump and a cast iron water butt which has an attached butt in the third bay. The doors are the same as the external door and retain brass upright handles stamped with 'MESSENGER & CO. LTD HORTICULTURAL BUILDINGS LOUGHBOROUGH'.

The third and fourth bays have soil beds along the front and rear; that along the front of the fourth bay is raised and has heating pipes fixed on the low brick wall. These two bays also have narrow iron rods running roughly parallel to the roof, fixed on decorative brackets, for training vines. The rear wall of the fourth bay retains the original vine wire anchoring points with stretchers.