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44
Historic Gardens 2010
BCD Special Report
south gable, would have been in deep
shade. Hidden beside the paths were vents
from the heating system, connected to an
extensive network of underground pipes
that conducted warm air from the boiler
below. Upkeep of the fernery would have
been a costly undertaking: glasshouses were
expensive to maintain and the coal-fired
boiler would have needed daily attention.
James Shirley Hibberd, a 19th-century
horticulturist and editor of
The Gardener’s
Magazine
, provided long lists of ferns
recommended for cultivation under different
conditions in his book
The Fern Garden
(1869). Hibberd advised on how to construct
and lay out a fernery to achieve a natural
effect, recommending building on a slope
to gain from the range in temperature that
could be realised in a heated fernery. The
location and construction of the Benmore
fernery reflected these recommendations.
It has a large rectangular footprint and
was originally covered by a glazed arched
roof. The three thick walls – the long west
wall and the two rounded gables – are
constructed of schist rubble and lime mortar,
while the fourth wall is formed largely
by the cliff itself. The fernery’s position
at the side of a steep gully means that its
floor is on three levels; the uppermost
(north) gable is fairly low, equivalent to
one storey, whereas the lower (south) gable
towers up out of the hillside, reflecting the
considerable change in height within the
building. On the west side, at the lower end
of the long wall is a small lean-to building
where the coal-fired boiler was housed.
Remnants of the original roof of the
fernery showed that it was carried on
semicircular iron trusses, supported on
buttresses capped with substantial padstones
to spread the load. The glazing had been
supported in wooden overlapping frames,
presumably held in place with putty.
However, the detailed structure of the frames
had been lost, and there was no trace of
the ‘lantern’ that ran along the ridge of the
roof, other than the small gablets where
it met the top of each rounded gable.
Benmore in decline
Following the introduction of a German sugar
bounty, Duncan became bankrupt and had
to sell the estate in 1889. It was purchased
by Henry John Younger as a sporting estate
and he introduced an impressive collection
of rhododendrons. The fernery, being
expensive to maintain, probably started
to fall into decline following the change of
ownership, but, while the picture gallery and
sugar refinery were demolished, the fabric
of the fernery remained, its isolated position
perhaps helping to ensure its survival.
Through the generosity of Henry
Younger’s son, Harry George Younger, the
Benmore Estate was gifted to the RBGE in
1930. The fernery was already derelict by then
and, although it was structurally maintained
for as long as possible, some 15 years ago the
building had to be closed to public access.
Unfortunately, no written or visual
records of the fernery at Benmore in its
heyday have been found, nor any reports
of the species under cultivation, nor any
photographic archive, and so we can only
speculate on the diversity of species that were
cultivated. Following exposure to the elements
for probably a century it is not surprising that
the original collection of ferns has long since
disappeared. Prior to restoration, with the roof
open to the sky, the derelict fernery remained
a fernery of sorts nonetheless, having being
invaded by a jumble of native species that
luxuriated in the cool, moist and shady
conditions. And in the year before restoration
an exotic brittle bladder fern,
Cystopteris
diaphana
, a species more commonly found
in Madeira and the Azores, was discovered
lurking in the grotto beside the pool;
perhaps it was one of the original denizens.
The grotto and stairways before conservation (Photo: MAST Architects)
The derelict fernery with its towering south gable (Photo: MAST Architects)