Orangery Including Hot Houses Adjoining To North West And South East

This is an early 19th-century orangery, now used as a tea house, with later additions dating from circa 1980. It is located within Bicton Park, and forms part of a grand 19th-century landscaping scheme that includes the Palm House and Italianate Gardens. The orangery overlooks the gardens and valley, with views extending to Hayward's Church of St Mary and the Rolle obelisk.

The main structure is built of limestone ashlar to the front, with brick and stuccoed walls to the rear, and has a slate roof to the main block and glass roofs over the attached hot houses. The orangery is a broad, curving building facing south-west, designed to overlook the gardens. The central section has an open colonnade, while the rooms on either side curve slightly forward. The rear wall continues the curve, with lower hot houses placed in front. The inner hot houses are set forward of the outer ones, which are recessed.

The front of the orangery has a symmetrical arrangement of 3 bays by 3 windows, in a Classical style. The rooms have large, 48-pane sash windows. The central portion features a wide, distyle Ionic colonnade in antis, set on a pair of steps, with a moulded entablature, modillion cornice, and a low-pitched pediment. The pediment contains a round-headed niche, and the steps are flanked by low walls featuring large limestone statues of seated, barking dogs. Four bays flank the colonnade, with panelled pilasters between. The inner three bays contain full-height sash windows, while the outer bays each feature a round-headed niche with an oculus window above. The same moulded entablature and modillion cornice runs across the facade, topped by a plain parapet. The roof is hipped at each end, and the pediment is surmounted by a large wrought iron and brass weather vane. Niche contains white marble busts on fluted columnular pedestals – the Duke of Wellington in the pediment and Sir Walter Raleigh and Lord Nelson to the sides. The hot houses have low stucco walls, glass walls with glazing bars, and glass monopitch roofs which lean against the rear walls. Originally designed to provide varying levels of heat, the inner ones have boiler houses behind.