Last week Jemima Goldsmith, whose father was the financier Sir James Goldsmith, and who was once famously married to cricketer Imran Khan, purchased an orangery in Oxfordshire for close on £15m. Mind you, it did have a mini stately home attached to it – Kiddington Hall a nine-bedroom house, listed Grade II and built of pale, honey-coloured English limestone.
Built in 1673 it sits in a landscape created by Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown, then just 24-years of age, who promised to make it ‘so agreeable that no one will wish to look beyond it’; he went on to create an undulating park with a signature serpentine lake, that was formed by damming the River Glyme that flows through the estate and on to Blenheim.
In 1850 the architect Sir Charles Barry remodelled the house in his trademark Italianate style, built a magnificent new stable courtyard adjoining the hall to the north, and created a formal terraced gardens to the south and west, overlooking Brown’s park. It was at this time that the Victorian orangery was added.
Of course, you needn’t be as extravagant as Jemima Goldsmith when you wish to have an orangery added to your property. We can install one for a fraction of the price in Victorian, Georgian or Contemporary style!
