Fernery, attached wall to west and steps to south, Ashridge

Fernery, attached wall to west and steps to south, Ashridge

This fernery was built in 1864 to the designs of Matthew Digby Wyatt. It is constructed of red brick laid in English bond with brick and ashlar stone dressings, and has a glazed iron-framed roof.

The fernery is located at the southern end of the stable court to the west of the house, occupying a rectangular plan on a raised grass terrace that overlooks the fernery garden to the south-west.

The exterior displays classical styling with a stone plinth and seven bays defined by round arch openings with brick voussoirs and stone keystones. Stone bands emphasise the spring lines, and a moulded string course runs along the top of the arches. The glazed openings contain wooden glazing bars forming a cross pattern. The central entrance bay is particularly prominent, featuring a stone surround with a keyed round arch opening and plain frieze. The jambs and spandrels are embellished with sinuous acanthus leaf designs. The round arch doorway contains a glazed double-leaf door in a timber frame, which does not appear to be original. Brick pilasters sit at each end, and a decorative parapet in the form of a moulded stone balustrade crowns the structure. This balustrade is interrupted over each arch by sections containing, alternately, red terracotta balls held in shell-shaped bowls and white terracotta moulded roundels with cherubs' faces. The three-bay return walls follow the same style as the facade. The roof, hidden behind the parapet, features a glazed steel frame.

Against the rear wall stands a row of red brick sheds under a mono-pitch roof clad in slates laid in diminishing courses. One gabled bay is flush with the elevation. The sheds are lit by two-light wooden-framed windows with chamfered lintels and feature two plank and batten doors with latches.

The interior's north-west wall is largely covered with large pieces of roughly hewn Totternhoe stone in which ferns have been planted in the crevices. In each corner are narrow beds edged in stone, and water pipes with decorative cast iron grilles run around the edge. The floor has been concreted over except for a wide border of red and black tiles laid in the pattern carreaux d'octagones. The light iron-framed roof structure incorporates mechanisms for releasing hot air. The south-east slope is glazed while the north-west slope is clad in vertical panels.

Two flights of stone steps flank the fernery, leading down to a small lawn with red brick, stone-coped retaining walls. Another flight of steps at the south-east end of the left-hand wall leads out of the fernery garden.

Attached to the north-west corner is a tall buttressed and crenellated wall of flint rubble, which turns northwards at right angles. From that point the wall is constructed of red brick. It features a gateway with piers surmounted in cross gables and a decorative iron gate, and terminates at the edge of the 20th-century building known as Coronation Walk.