Kitchen Garden Enclosure Walls And Heated Wall, Blagdon Water Garden Centre

Kitchen Garden Enclosure Walls and Heated Wall, Blagdon Water Garden Centre

This is a former kitchen garden with an associated heated wall for a hot house, now demolished. The structures date from the late 18th to early 19th centuries with alterations made during the 19th and 20th centuries.

The enclosure walls are constructed of random stone rubble on their outer faces and red brick laid in English garden wall bond on their inner sides, with copings of pantile and stone. The heated wall is also of red brick, with an attached single-storey lean-to built against its north side having walls of random rubble and red brick, topped with a pantile roof and brick stacks at either end.

The site lies to the east of Langford Brook. The walls form a trapezoidal enclosure with north and south walls approximately 60 metres long and the return to the east approximately 50 metres long. A smaller section of wall is attached to the south, connected to Brook Cottages but not included in the listing. The heated wall is positioned at an angle to the main enclosure, just beyond the north-west corner and runs west to east. A late 19th-century two-storey addition and mid-20th-century flat-roofed two-bay building are attached to the east of the heated wall, both now derelict and not of special architectural or historic interest. A late 19th-century detached building stands to the west of the heated wall and is also not of special interest.

The north and east sections of the enclosure wall stand approximately 4 metres high with pantile copings, while the south wall returns approximately 3 metres high with weathered stone coping. The wall formerly returned north to complete the enclosure but has been demolished at its north end. Segmental-headed doors with brick lintels exist at either end of the north wall, with a further doorway in the south-west wall.

The heated wall measures 10 metres long and 5 metres high and is of hollow cavity construction, which permitted hot air to be pumped through. Its south face is mostly whitewashed, indicating where the former glasshouse or hot house stood. Three rows of sixteen round-headed recesses are set into the wall, originally designed for growing and displaying pineapples and other exotic or tender fruits or flowers. The upper row has been blocked and a wide square-headed opening has been inserted at ground level. The recesses have flush half-brick arches and large quarry-tile sills. The west elevation of the rear lean-to is of random stone rubble while its rear is of brick and appears to have been largely rebuilt. New openings including doors and windows were inserted during the late 19th and 20th centuries.

The lean-to contains two bays, subdivided in its upper part by a timber partition with lath and plaster on its east face. Although no evidence of the heating system survives, the west half appears to have originally housed the stove that heated the south wall and the associated hot house. A shallow rectangular pit may indicate its former position. The eastern half is more domestic in character and may have served as a bothy. It retains a hearth with brick jambs and lintel.

This former walled garden was associated with Mendip Lodge, a house located on a north-facing slope in woodlands approximately 500 metres to the south. Mendip Lodge was built in the late 18th century by the Reverend Thomas Whalley, an eccentric clergyman and playwright. The house was approached by a winding carriage road and surrounded by terraced walks, grottos, plantations of trees and shrubberies. Reverend Whalley's life ended in decline following separation from his third wife. In attempting to repair his finances he tried to sell Mendip Lodge, which had reportedly cost £60,000, but it failed to realise £30,000. After a period of neglect, Mendip Lodge is now ruinous.

A map dated 1844 depicts the walled garden as 'Garden', with the area immediately to the west labelled 'Flower Garden, Green Ho, Hot Ho'. Land further west, now Blagdon Water Gardens, is shown as 'Card's Open Garden' and included a fishpond and a further hot house. Little remains within the flower garden except the free-standing length of walling designed as a heated wall for an attached hot house, now demolished. The single-storey lean-to against the north face of the wall housed the furnaces. In the later 19th century the lean-to was extended with a two-storey single-bay addition and appears to have been converted to residential use. Further changes have occurred since the mid-19th century, including loss of a short section of walling on the west side of the garden, loss of all greenhouses and hot houses, and addition of a flat-roofed two-storey building to the east of the heated wall in the late 20th century.

During the 20th century the site operated as a nursery growing vegetables, flowers, shrubs and trees, but has been largely vacant since the late 20th century.