Walled garden at Glemham House, with glasshouses, ancillary buildings and melon pit

The walled garden at Glemham House

This walled garden stands to the north of Glemham House and was constructed between 1814 and 1823, contemporary with the house itself. It may have been designed by Thomas Hopper.

The walls are built of red brick laid in three different bonds: Sussex bond at the base, Flemish bond at mid-height, and monk bond for the upper courses. The shallow four-stage buttresses on the exterior are positioned at and between each corner.

The garden forms a nine-sided enclosure and attaches to the stable block on the south side. The south wall is formed by the back of a low two-storey building in the stable yard, also in red brick, with a number of casement windows looking into the garden.

There are three original entrances: a boarded timber doorway at the south-east corner adjacent to the stable yard, another in the centre of the north wall, and one at the south-west corner which features a late 20th-century decorative metal gate. An additional doorway has been created in the north-west corner to provide access from a building on the outside wall which has been converted to a private residence.

Four glasshouses stand along the north side of the garden, two on each side of the northern doorway. The central pair were originally constructed around 1829 or earlier. The western-central glasshouse was extended before 1871 to form a single continuous structure, but was separated at the central corner in 1999. The glazing of these western glasshouses includes sliding sash roof vents. The earlier phase displays narrowly spaced glazing bars and double-hung sashes, with every pane set at an angled parallelogram, 5° from perpendicular to the wall, and its horizontals tilted 2°. Some original crown glass survives. The eastern pair of glasshouses have undergone greater alteration. The glasshouse nearest the doorway has a renewed timber structure with windows operated by rods rather than sashes. The further glasshouse was largely rebuilt in the late 20th century with a new aluminium frame above its original brick plinth.

On the wall behind the northern glasshouses is a succession of low brick, slate-roofed lean-to buildings constructed at the same time as the walled garden. The gardeners' bothy at the western end has been converted to a residence with an extension erected in 2009. Next to this is an apple store with louvred vents on the windows and wooden racking inside, followed by a tool shed next to the garden entrance. East of the entrance is a former mushroom house with shutters on the windows, followed by the former boiler house with large pipework (though the boiler and flue have been removed), and a bothy at the eastern end.

The glasshouses are built of timber or aluminium. The ancillary buildings are built of brick and timber.

The melon pit stands detached from the walls a short distance to the east of the garden. It is rectangular in form, embedded in the ground, and forms a brick plinth that rises to the east. Its original glass cover is missing. The melon pit is built of brick.