The Orangery

The Orangery is a former orangery built around 1720, with railings added around 1872-3. It was carefully renovated around 1980 by the Landmark Trust. The building features a front made of Flemish bond red brick, while the rest is constructed from local stone rubble. It has a stone rubble stack with moulded limestone coping and a slate roof that replaced the original glass roof during the renovation.

This tall, single-storey structure has a rectangular plan and faces south-south-west. The exterior boasts an attractive five-window front with very tall round-headed sash windows, each featuring thick glazing bars and rubbed brick flat-headed arches with limestone keystones. The central window, which serves as a doorway, has a panelled base that reaches the ground, while the two flanking windows have bull-nosed limestone sills. The timber eaves cornice includes a plain modillion frieze, and the roof is hipped at both ends.

Inside, the walls are plastered, and there is a plaster ceiling. The original glass roof was supported by late 19th-century cast iron trusses, which were removed during the renovation and are now displayed in the garden on brick piers, approximately 20 meters west of the Orangery. To the right rear, there are stone rubble sleeper walls with limestone coping and spearheaded railings featuring large standards with gadrooned finials, along with a gate in the same style.

Although the nearby Rolle mansion, Stevenstone House, is now in ruins, the Orangery remains part of a group of attractive subsidiary buildings, several of which are also listed. If it was indeed an orangery from the beginning, it stands as a very early example of its kind.