Kensington Palace, the birthplace of the Queen: being an historical guide to the state rooms, pictures and gardensLaw, Ernest
History
Kensington Palace, the birthplace of the Queen: being an historical guide to the state rooms, pictures and gardens
Law, Ernest
Kensington Palace (London, England) -- Guidebooks; Victoria, Queen of Great Britain, 1819-1901
Nor do we see why such restorations should stop here, nor why much of
the ground around the Palace should not be laid out in the old English
style, with some, at any rate, of the many embellishments for which
Evelyn pleaded as suitable for a royal garden: "Knots, trayle work,
parterres, compartments, borders, banks, embossments, labyrinths,
dædals, cabinets, cradles, close walks, galleries, pavilions, porticoes,
lanthorns, and other _relievos_ of topiary and horticulan architecture,
fountaines, jettes, cascades, pisceries, rocks, grottoes, cryptæ,
mounts, precipices, and ventiducts; gazon theatres, artificial echoes,
automate and hydraulic music!"
Barring the last half dozen items, something in the antique formal style
would, indeed, be a relief from the tedious monotony of modern
"landscape" gardening.
=Exterior of Queen Anne's Orangery.=
As a specimen of an unaffectedly ornamented exterior of brick, this
elevation to the south, aiming rather at simplicity and plain dignity
than magnificence or grandeur, is to our view admirable.
In the centre is a compartment, more decoratively treated than the rest,
with four rusticated piers or pillars of brick, supporting an
entablature of the Doric order, mainly in stone. The cornice, though
probably modelled on the original, must be modern, for it is in Roman
cement, a material which did not come into use in England until about a
hundred years ago; and it so happens that the date, 1805, has been found
on part of the woodwork adjoining. Above the cornice, over the central
window, or rather doorway, is a semi-circular window, apparently to give
light into the roof. On each side of the central compartment are four
high windows, with sashes filled with small panes; and at each end are
slightly projecting wings, or bays, with window-doors, extra high, and
reaching to the floor level, to admit tall-grown oranges and other
plants. These are flanked by plain rusticated piers of bright red
brick; beyond which are plain brick niches, with small brackets above
them.
A very similar arrangement of windows and niches is repeated at the east
and west return ends of the building; where, however, the large window
is surmounted by a small semi-circular recess or panel, and the whole
overhung by the deep, wide eave of the gable of the roof.
The total exterior length of the building is 171 feet, the width 32
feet.
=Interior of Queen Anne's Orangery.=
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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