Surrounded by a twentieth century housing estate in south London, this classical building comes as something of a surprise. The Orangery, as it is known today, was once a feature of the pleasure grounds of Robert Thornton’s house on the edge of Clapham Common.

Thornton (1759-1826), an MP and businessman, had inherited a substantial fortune from his merchant father, John Thornton (1720-1790). Robert’s house stood in a small landscaped park with lakes, and in around 1792 he added this elegant building. Over the door is an inscription from Virgil which gives a clue as to the purpose of the fine structure: HIC VER ASSIDUUM ATQUE ALIENIS MENSIBUS AESTAS, which translates as ‘Here is eternal spring and summer in months not her own’, or ‘Tis here eternal spring and summer all the year’: the building was a greenhouse, where tender plants could be kept alive in the colder months of the year.

The artist Joseph Farington visited in 1806, with his friend William Wilberforce, and noted in his diary that the Orangery was built to a design by Dr Burgh of York. William Burgh (1741-1808) was Irish-born, but lived in York for many years. He doesn’t seem to have a history as an amateur architect, but he was a friend of the poet and garden designer William Mason, and wrote a commentary to accompany the 1783 edition of Mason’s poem The English Garden. In this text Burgh wrote that Mason’s lines about a greenhouse ‘where rare and alien plants/might safely flourish’ was inspired by the French writer and landscape designer René Louis Girardin. Girardin published De La Composition des Paysages in 1777, in which he suggested that a greenhouse with a background of trees would form a ‘jolie tableau‘. Girardin’s concept and Mason’s lines were brought to life in Clapham.

Long since lost is a marble tablet which was inside the building. It was inscribed with an extract from William Cowper’s poem The Task, including these lines which echo the quotation from Virgil on the frieze:

Unconscious of a less propitious clime,
There blooms exotic beauty, warm and snug,
While the winds whistle, and the snows descend.

The pediment is decorated with what are believed to be Coade stone ornaments. In the engraving (above) the central plaque appears to feature a profile, but if that was the case it has disappeared, and it is not known who or what it represented (by the mid-20th century the oval space was a window which lit the attic behind the pediment). The Greenhouse, as it was originally known, had a view of a serpentine canal and lawns and then over a haha to the meadows and another serpentine lake beyond. The Greenhouse was originally furnished with huge sash windows, with curious glazing between the columns – rather like stretcher bond in brickwork (see the photo’ below).

In 1808 Queen Charlotte, the Princesses and the Dukes of Cumberland and Cambridge visited the Thorntons at their ‘Clapham Villa’, and were shown the Greenhouse, but soon after Thornton got into financial difficulties. The Thornton Estate was offered for sale in 1810 when it was described as a ‘most superb villa’ with gardens full of native and exotic species ‘now in the highest state of cultivation’. The map in the sales particulars shows the ‘Greenhouse’ overlooking one of the serpentine lakes.

The estate was on the market again in 1851 when the ‘beautiful conservatory of Portland stone’ was described as ‘commanding views over the pleasure grounds and rich meadow land, which presents the appearance of a small park’.

The estate was bought by a Belgian order of nuns who established the Notre Dame convent and school on the site. New buildings were added, playing fields and tennis courts were laid out, and the girls could row on the serpentine lake and ride ponies in the grounds.

The convent closed in 1939 but its name lives on in the Notre Dame Estate, which was developed on the site of the convent and former Thornton gardens soon after the Second World War.

All that remains today of the pleasure grounds is the Orangery, which serves as an elegant backdrop to a recreation ground in the middle of the Notre Dame Estate. In the early 1950s the writer E.M. Forster, whose great-aunt Marianne was a Thornton, visited Clapham and found ‘no Thornton memorial except a dilapidated Orangery’. He was saddened that the site had been cleared ‘at a time when development was unusually ruthless’.

Unsurprisingly, the windows were the first casualty when the building stood empty, and today the rather forlorn building stands behind security fencing.

The Orangery has been largely without a purpose since the estate was constructed. Drawings by the Borough of Wandsworth Engineer, Surveyor and Architect show that the building was consolidated in 1955 when it was listed at Grade II, and it has had occasional remedial works ever since. The Orangery is on Historic England’s Buildings at Risk Register and, despite much debate and local support, a viable future for the structure remains to be found.

Update October 2025: Private Eye’s architecture correpsondent, ‘Piloti’, wrote about the orangery in the edition dated 17-30 October 2025. More than half of the roof has collapsed and Lambeth Council are seeking external funding to pay for repairs estimated to cost £100,000.

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Constructed early in the 19th century, this rocky grotto was built in the grounds of Ingleborough Hall, home to the Farrer family. Later it was a favoured spot of Elizabeth Farrer (1853-1937), and has thus became known by the wonderfully comforting name of Aunt Bessie’s Grotto. Here tea was served by the staff, whilst the family enjoyed the wonderful view to Thwaite Scars.

The unusual grotto, constructed out of large weather and water-formed stones, is named as the ‘Station’ on the first edition Ordnance Survey map surveyed in 1846-7. The word ‘station’ was popularised by Thomas West in his A Guide to the Lakes, first published in 1778. West recommended a number of viewpoints, or stations, from which the best vistas could be appreciated. However on the tithe map of 1847 it is called the Grotto, and by the end of the century it was marked as such on the revised OS map.

From Clapham village a path runs past a lake (or tarn in Yorkshire parlance), and through the Clapdale glen to the spectacular natural wonders of Trow Gill and Ingleborough Cave. This picturesque route was laid out by the Farrer family from around 1828, and in 1833 it was reported that a new walk was almost complete with a picturesque landscape ‘diversified with hills, rocks, wood, water & a narrow vale’. Although the grotto also dates from this period, there are very few references to it, possibly because most visitors were more interested in describing the sublime natural scenery. A rare mention is made in 1873 when the Yorkshire Union of Mechanics’ Institutes had a summer excursion to Clapham. Arriving at the ivy-clad grotto, which was ‘deliciously cool’, they gave thanks for ‘that taste that has dictated the placing of the grotto in this spot, commanding one of the grandest panoramas’.

Aunt Bessie presumably only resorted to the Grotto in the summer months. Visiting in March it was dank and dripping, and not even a footman with a cup of tea would have made The Folly Flâneuse linger inside.

Bizarrely, the Farrer family of Ingleborough, a Mechanics Institute, a grotto, and the year 1873 all also appear in a completely different story that emerged as The Folly Flâneuse was researching this post.

At the beginning of the 1870s the Mechanics’ Institute of Bradford moved to a marvellous new building (sadly demolished), but the cost of construction left a deficit of £5,000. To raise funds the Art Treasures and Industrial Exhibition was opened in 1873, and over 4 months almost 160,000 people visited the Institute. Alongside the displays of cutting edge technology there were paintings, watercolours and the decorative arts. The Duke of Devonshire lent a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds and the wealthy wool merchants of the area produced an impressive array of works by J.M.W. Turner and other prominent artists. 1/- would buy a cold luncheon, and those with deeper pockets could have a ‘quart of Moet’s champagne for 8 shillings: it probably sold well as the patrons included a duke, a marquess, an earl, a bishop and most of the very affluent gentry and merchants of town.

As an added attraction Mr John Parker of Bowling came up with an ingenious use for a ‘dark useless room’ underneath the lecture hall – a grotto of artificial stone. Entry was via a rocky cavern which emerged into a chamber supported by giant pillars covered in native bark. There was a waterfall which fell into a lake with resident (model) crocodile, and ‘every other object connected with such wonderful places as grottoes’. The lack of ‘natural verdure’ was solved by none other than Mr Farrer of Ingleborough House, who supplied ‘a large quantity of mosses and ferns’ to clothe the rocks. Sadly no photographs of the grotto are known.

As an aside, this ‘Squire Farrer’ of Ingleborough was the great-uncle of one of Britain’s most important plant-hunters and gardeners – Reginald Farrer (1880-1920). Reginald’s parents were James and Elizabeth (the Bessie of grotto fame) who became custodians of Ingleborough in 1889, and Reginald would have known the grotto well. Respected both by the gardening professional and the layman, his My Rock Garden, first published in 1907, was a classic which was in print for decades.

Aunt Bessie’s Grotto can be visited on the Ingleborough Estate Nature Trail, which at the time of writing remains open to visitors. But do check the website before travelling  https://ingleboroughcave.co.uk/nature-trail/