Basic HTML Version
BCD Special Report
Historic Gardens 2010
3
De Leeuwenhorst in Noordwijkerhout.
Pieter de la Court, a wealthy cloth merchant
at Driehoek near Leiden, devised his own
system for growing pineapples and many
British gardeners were sent to his estate to
learn about his cultivation techniques.
Dutch methods of pineapple growing
became the blueprint for cultivation in Britain,
undoubtedly endorsed after the Glorious
Revolution of 1688 cemented Anglo-Dutch
relations. William Bentinck, close adviser of
William III, is thought to have shipped the
entire stock of Caspar Fagel’s pineapple plants
over to Hampton Court in 1692. The fruits
were, however, ripened from this stock of
mature plants and therefore did not count as
British-grown pineapples. Pineapples had been
ripened in this way before, as commemorated
in Hendrik Danckerts’ painting of 1675
depicting Charles II being presented with
a pineapple by John Rose, gardener to the
Duchess of Cleveland. Danckerts’ painting
led to the common misconception that Rose
was the first to grow a pineapple in Britain.
The 18th century
The first reliable crop of pineapples in Britain
was in fact achieved by a Dutch grower,
Henry Telende, gardener to Matthew Decker,
at his seat in Richmond between 1714 and
1716. Decker commissioned a painting in
1720 to celebrate this feat and this time
the pineapple takes pride of place as the
sole object of admiration. From this point
on the craze for growing them developed
into a full-blown pineapple mania. The
list of gentlemen engaged in this rarefied
horticultural activity reads like a who’s
who of Georgian society and includes the
poets William Cowper and Alexander
Pope and the architect Lord Burlington.
The period is mainly associated with the
English landscape movement and glasshouse
cultivation is a rather neglected subject. The
latter was, however, an important part of
18th century horticulture and many of the
associated inventions that we now take for
granted were developed or refined during
this period, such as the use of angled glazing,
spirit thermometers and furnace-heated
greenhouses called hothouses or stoves.
Structures devised for
pineapple growing
The appearance of innovations seems to follow
no clear chronological order. Early attempts
at cultivation were made in orangeries, which
had been designed to provide frost protection
for citrus fruit during the winter months.
Orangeries, however, did not provide enough
heat and light for the tropical pineapple,
which grew all year round. Heating in
glasshouses during the mid 17th century
was provided by furnaces placed within the
structure, but fumes often damaged or killed
the plants. Hot-air flues were then devised,
which dissipated heat slowly through winding
flues built into cavity walls. These ‘fire walls’
were heated by hot air rising from furnaces or
stoves and required constant stoking with coal.
This was a dangerous method and many early
‘pineries’, as they later became known, burned
down when the inevitable accumulation of
soot and debris within the flues caught fire.
A light environment with even, fume-free,
continuous heat was still only an aspiration.
Henry Telende’s method of pineapple
cultivation was published in Richard
Bradley’s
A General Treatise of Husbandry and
Gardening
in 1721
.
Telende grew the young
plants, called ‘succession plants’, in large
cold frames called tan pits. The fruiting
plants would subsequently be moved into
the stove or hothouse to benefit from the
additional heat provided by the hot-air flues.
Illustration of hothouse and pinery-vinery from Loudon’s An Encyclopedia of Gardening
James Justice’s plan of the pineapple stove published in The Scots Gardiners’ Director, 1754