What's an "Orangery"?

[FuzzyPuffling]

Well, yes, I know what it is in my world, but I am seeing so much about them recently. Do people just mean a conservatory, but that's become unfashionable?

Is there a material difference?

And can I raise you a "camellia house"?

I believe they were originally a sort of greenhouse where orange trees and other plants were kept warm in the winter. I guess that now the term is a posh way of saying a conservatory - or a camellia house .

Yeah it’s a posh word for a glass room.

A conservatory with pretensions.

It's normally a bit more 'solid' than a conservatory with half or small walls, probably timber framed rather than PVC and more of a rectangle rather than square.

Conservatories typically have a glass roof and can be either too hot it too cold

Orangaries have less glass and more tiles / slates and don’t have the same extremes of temperature

A room that can't be used for 11 months of the year due to extremes of temperature and should be knocked down and replaced by a proper extension!

@eurochick

A conservatory with pretensions.

Pure wankery. It's unlikely most of the house details which include an "orangery" are actually that. Somewhere to wander about wearing and big floppy hat and snipping off a lime for your g&t. As others have said, more likely a pimped up conservatory.

My in laws had an original Victorian orangery on their house, it wasn’t a conservatory other than it was heavily glazed. It wasn’t a shape that you could really sit in though (long and narrow, opening up at the end) and had the original series of grates ventilation/heating system in it. It was a beautiful thing, they still used it as a greenhouse/orangery.

The modern ones seem to be shorthand for expensive hardwood conservatories.

A conservatory but with more solid walls.

My parents have one. It has short walls and glass above that. Rather than all glass.

I'll raise you a south facing room built onto the house which stretches across the whole width, which they have elected to call their Morning Room. Boak.

My dh calls his garden shed his 'hermitage'. we were thinking of asking the Vicar to come and live there ...

My grandparents had a proper orangery, it was like the one BalladOfBarryAndFreda describes; when I see the term used now it does seem to be applied to a conservatory with delusions of grandeur. See also: summer house.

I’ve always understood them to be part of grander/larger usually ‘country’ houses. Very large (because trees are being hot houses in them) version of greenhouse. More solid, more brick used. Large windows for light. Often detached from main residence. 18th century/19th century. Found places with walled gardens and pineapple pits etc. Where there would have been gardening /kitchen staff.
Please please don’t say new build estates or other normal houses with humdrum conservatories are starting to marketed them as ‘orangeries’ ??

I once sold a house for which the estate agent insisted on describing a large front hallway room as a ‘receiving hall’. I insisted he not before particulars were agreed by me.

Everyone has beaten me to it... An orangery is to conservatory as burlesque is to stripping.

My DM has had one built recently. Two solid walls (with posh cladding), bifold doors and a triangular sky light type thing? Certainly couldn't grow an orange tree in there.

An orangery has more walls and often a tiled roof but with skylights. It's much nicer than a conservatory because you can use it all year round. I would like an orangery

I agree that if they are calling it an orangery, it probably means its got less glass than you'd expect in a conservatory. Think planning for them is different (IIRC, conservatories have to have a certain percentage of glass to be classed as such for planning, which is easier to get than a similar floor space extension).

They traditionally would be long thin rooms connecting up others along a wall, rather than a square /rounded shape sticking out as conservatories usually are.

@SylvanianFrenemies

Everyone has beaten me to it... An orangery is to conservatory as burlesque is to stripping.

Lol 😆

Conservatory = caravan
Orangery = luxury RV

Orangery has a built structure and more substantial roof with less glass than a conservatory

Conservatory more glass

Basically, an extension with big windows and a ceiling window, not a big green house stuck on the side of the house with chairs in - less likely to be bloody freezing as traditional conservatories are for months of the year.

I've just discovered we have one! As in I knew it was there but we call it the sunroom as was on the house particulars. I may indeed refer to it as The Orangery! 😂😂

Ha ha...😁😁😁😁. I love you all!

In modern parlance, if you look at the big manufacturers, it’s to do with the amount of roof glazing.
Sunrooms have a solid roof (usually with skylight windows) and half brick walls.
Orangeries have a solid roof with a large glass ceiling lantern window and dwarf walls.
Conservatories have a fully glazed roof with either dwarf walls or floor to ceiling glazing.

As I said, original orangeries didn’t have to have a solid roof. Most had a fully glazed, hardwood framed roof to allow as much sun in as possible, to grow Mediterranean and tropical plants. Some of the bigger ones will have had glazed lanterns but most of the small-medium domestic scale ones were fully glazed.

@BalladOfBarryAndFreda

My in laws had an original Victorian orangery on their house, it wasn’t a conservatory other than it was heavily glazed. It wasn’t a shape that you could really sit in though (long and narrow, opening up at the end) and had the original series of grates ventilation/heating system in it. It was a beautiful thing, they still used it as a greenhouse/orangery.

The modern ones seem to be shorthand for expensive hardwood conservatories.

That sounds lovely.