An orangery or orangerie is a room or dedicated building, historically where orange and other fruit trees are protected during the winter, as a large form of greenhouse or conservatory. The orangery provided a luxurious extension of the normal range and season of woody plants, extending the protection which had long been afforded by the warmth offered from a masonry fruit wall.
Since these plants were not adapted to the harsh European winters, orangeries were invented to protect and sustain them. The high cost of glass made orangeries a status symbol showing wealth and luxury. Gradually, due to technological advancements, orangeries became more of a classic architectural structure that enhanced the beauty of an estate garden, rather than a room used for wintering plants.
The orangery originated from the Renaissance gardens of Italy, when glass-making technology enabled sufficient expanses of clear glass to be produced. In the north, the Dutch led the way in developing expanses of window glass in orangeries, although the engravings illustrating Dutch manuals showed solid roofs, whether beamed or vaulted, and in providing stove heat rather than open fires. The glazed roof, which afforded sunlight to plants that were not dormant, was a development of the early 19th century.
The orangery at Dyrham Park , Gloucestershire, which had been provided with a slate roof as originally built about , [ 5 ] was given a glazed one about a hundred years later, after Humphrey Repton remarked that it was dark; although it was built to shelter oranges, it has always simply been called the "greenhouse" in modern times.
Designed by Jules Hardouin-Mansart for Louis XIV's 3, orange trees at Versailles , its dimensions of by 42 feet by 13 m were not eclipsed until the development of the modern greenhouse in the s, and were quickly overshadowed by the glass architecture of Joseph Paxton , the designer of the Crystal Palace.
