Conservatory v Orangery: the difference?

There was an article about this in the Telegraph recently, I think it was written by Christopher Middleton.

www.jewelwindows.co.uk/blog/the-difference-between-an-orangery-and-a-conservatory/

I had always thought an orangery belonged to a Stately home type of place but I do know of people who have Garden rooms although I have never seen one, so don't actually know how these differ from conservatories.

If you read the link you will see that it's mainly structural.

Presumably, an orangery faces the perfect way for growing oranges while a conservatory doesn't.

I bet the people who have orangeries don't grow oranges in them.

I think an Orangery was originally used for over-wintering orange trees etc., much as a conservatory can be used to over-winter less than hardy shrubs.

Unless of course one is being pretentious, then 'orangery' sounds much posher than a 'conservatory. My mother would have had an orangery!

A garden room, on the other hand, would seem to have trugs, twine, seed packets etc.

And a pile of old, muddy wellies...

(or possibly shiny new ones, just for show!)

Orangeries are also used like greenhouses and have plants permanently growing in them like grape vines and figs.

Oh but my friend who is always pretentious on her son's behalf describes his garden room as being an extension to the "huge "kitchen -diner, so no messy things in that I think.

We had a consevatory on our old Victorian property and sold the house for £125,000 the new owners rebuilt and enlarged the conservatory, called it an orangery and sold the house for half a million. Too be honest they did make other changes too

There's an orangery at Gibside. It was originally called the Green House, but in 1774 7 large tubs for orange trees were bought and it was subsequently called the Orangery. Mary Eleanor Bowes was well known for her passion for botany at the time. She also built a hot house which no longer exists, but the glassless orangery is still there.

What others are calling a garden room we call a boot room or utility room. I would describe an orangery as a garden room. In a big house we hired for a big family gathering there was a second sitting room opening onto the garden which was described as a garden room.

I thought an orangery had three half brick walls, the rest and roof glass, the fourth being the house. Conservatories are glass. Carson will know

Orangeries are much bigger! Big enough to grow full sized orange trees for goodness sake - and wheel them outside in the summer. Calling a conservatory an orangery is a bit like referring to your car as a JCB.

Look at the gallery on here:

www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/properties/wrest-park/

or there is one in Margam Park

Haha! The extension we have put on our house was referred to by a visitor as an orangery. It has a wall of windows/ glass doors and rooflights not a solid ceiling!

Where we moved from had a conservatory as it had an all glass roof and low brick walls on two sides with glass above!

I called them both 'the extension'!

Found it!

www.telegraph.co.uk/property/10350356/The-Cambridge-conservatory-needs-some-blue-sky-thinking.html

I used to work in an eighteenth century house, obviously converted to offices, that still had an orangery along one side of the building and still had orange trees there. It was an extremely elegant construction and a glorious place to sit and each lunch.

Lyme Park (think Colin Firth in a wet t-shirt) which is very close to me has a lovely orangery which would be very ostentatious on a modern house.

It would dwarf most modern houses, annsixty!

I like to imagine you anno just a few miles away with your "trigger finger" working just like mine when there is absolutely nothing on the telly!!!

Interesting Phoenix. Gibside, with its orangery, once belonged to the Bowes-Lyon family, but they let it go to ruin because it was in the North East. Mind not as bad as the castle near Barnard Castle that they stripped then let the army practice on.