Walled garden and glasshouse at Grove Park

Walled garden and glasshouse at Grove Park

A walled garden built around 1780, with glasshouses and alterations dating to around 1880.

The walled garden is roughly square on plan, aligned north-north-west to south-south-east, and measures approximately 0.6 hectares. It is constructed of red brick with corner piers and walls laid in monk bond, originally around 3 metres in height and coped with an oversailing course. The walls were raised by an additional metre or so around 1880, though the east side of the south wall was not raised. A variety of stepped and sloping buttresses have been added to the exterior and interior of the south and west walls.

The south side features a central segmental-arched gated opening facing the mansion of Grove Park, fitted with 20th-century wrought-iron gates with arrowhead finials to the two mid-rails. The west end of the south wall has a segmental-arched opening with double timber doors hung with wrought-iron strap hinges and nail studs. The west wall contains a segmental-arched timber-battened door and 20th-century window serving a potting shed at its north end. At the north end of the east wall is a segmental-arched door opening with a panelled door.

A central section of the north wall was raised to around 5 metres in height around 1880, when a tall lean-to glasshouse was added to its interior, featuring high-level segmental-arched window openings for ventilation. Behind this section, the wall rises further with a short triangular gable containing a round window. A chimneybreast was added to the exterior of the north wall around 1880 at the junction between the tall lean-to glasshouse and an attached single-storey range to the west.

The range of glasshouses along the north wall, constructed around 1880, comprises a central double-height canted section flanked by double-height structures leaning against the wall. All are timber-framed and glazed over a Suffolk white brick plinth. The central canted section has double glazed doors, fixed windows to the lower level, bottom-hung casement windows to the upper level, a decorative wind vane and decorative ridge finials (incomplete). The interior contains wrought-iron tie beams with decorative drop finials and a mechanical system for opening the top windows. The attached double-height lean-to glasshouses each have a glazed door to their east and west sides. A single-storey glasshouse with a saltbox roof, red brick rear wall and timber-framed glazed door is attached to the west end and stands detached from the garden wall.

A small rectangular potting shed is attached to the exterior of the north end of the west wall, featuring a lean-to roof with corrugated sheeting, red brick walls, a flat-arched timber door to the south side and a six-paned window to the west side.