Pulhamite Fernery, Bromley Palace Park

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 30/01/2014

785/1/10145 STOCKWELL CLOSE Pulhamite fernery, Bromley Palace Park

(Formerly listed under KENTISH WAY)

30-APR-08 II Pulhamite artificial rock-work fernery of c.1865, constructed by the firm of Pulhams, garden contractors.

DESCRIPTION: The fernery comprises a curving mass of linear, bedded, Pulhamite rockwork, overall approximately 15m across and 5m deep. Some of the individual rocks are over a cubic metre in size. The rockwork is set in a bank at the head of the north end of the lake, with a central cleft through which water flowed in to a basin at its base, and thence 5m to St Blaise's Well, which in turn fed directly into to the lake. The rockwork has a brown, sandy exterior finish, although one bedding plane is of a blueish rock which may be natural in origin. In some places the exterior skin has broken off exposing the scrap-brick core of the rockwork.

HISTORY: 'Pulhamite' rock-work was developed by James Pulham (c.1820-98), the son of one the pioneers of Portland cement manufacture. In the 1840s he began to use this cement as an ingredient in the construction of artificial rock-work. Masses of clinker and scrap brickwork were assembled, cement was poured over them, and they were moulded into boulder-like formations. Various surface finishes produced highly convincing and various artificial rock types, so convincing as at times to deceive naturalists. At Bromley, after changes to the boundary of the bishopric in 1845 the Palace became the private house of Coles Child, a wealthy coal merchant. He extended the house using Richard Norman Shaw as architect in 1863, and by 1865 was ornamenting his grounds, employing James Pulham over a five year period to create what contemporary records describe as a fernery and waterfall. It is the former which stands at the north end of the lake, with the waterfall to the south.

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION DECISION: The Pulhamite fernery of c.1865 at the north end of the lake at Bromley's former bishop's palace is listed for the following principal reasons: * It is a good and little-altered example of the artificial rock work (Pulhamite) produced in the C19 by James Pulham's firm * It sits within a little-altered mid-C19 landscape setting, at the end of a lake and amidst trees.