Our modern refrigeration systems of refrigeration 1-1 and quick transportation provide our markets with abundant fresh juicy oranges every day of the year. However, looking into the past makes us realize to what extent gardeners in cool climates struggled to obtain a few oranges a year, and those not too sweet or juicy at that.
There is no longer a need for the elaborate citronic or orangery, but it is delightful to read the descriptive and amusing accounts of some of the more famous ones mentioned in the diaries, journals, and letters of the 17th and 18th centuries.
Of Ancient Origin
The history of the orange is most extensive. Suffice it to say that this citrus fruit probably originated in India, though there is some question since it was so long ago. From India, records show its spread to western Asia and eventually to Europe.
In the 12th century, the orange was cultivated in the eastern Mediterranean countries, and the crusaders were supposed to have brought it from Palestine to Italy and southern France.
When the orange tree finally appeared in the countries of Europe, orangeries to house the tender fruit trees from the cold sprang up in all the prosperous establishments of the day.
Public gardens, royal abodes, and estates of the gentry vied with each other to build elaborate citronniers.
The Inimitable Diarists
As might be expected, the pens of those two eminent diarists, John Evelyn and Samuel Pepys, give us a good insight into the 17th-century orangeries in England. In 1664, Pepys mentioned seeing his first orange tree in the Physic Garden at St. James’ Park.
Two years later, he saw fruited trees for the first time, for a lie he wrote after visiting Lord Brooke’s establishment at Hackney.
“Here I first saw oranges grow: some green, some half, some a quarter, and some full ripe, on the same tree: and one fruit of the same tree does come a year or two after the other.
I pulled off a little one by stealth, the man being mightily curious of them, and ate it, and it was just as other little green small oranges are; as big as half the end of my little finger.”
The Orangery At Kew
Sir Henry Capeil’s Orangery at Kew was beautiful and perfectly kept. Evelyn visited there in 1088 and wrote that Sir Henry “was contriving very high palisades of reeds to shade his oranges during the summer, and painting those reeds in oil.”
He also writes in 1700, after a visit to the Carews’ ancient seat at Beddington, “the first orange trees that had been seen in England, planted in the open ground, and secured in Winter only by a tabernacle of boards and stoves removable in Summer, that, standing 120 years, large and goodly trees, and Laden with fruit, were now in decay.”
John Evelyn At Chelsea
When Evelyn visited the Countess of Bristol at Chelsea, he wrote: “There was in the garden a rare collection of orange trees, for which she was pleased to bestow some upon me.”
Later, his diary has this account “Mr. Slingsby and Signor Verrio (painter) came to dine with me, to whom I gave China oranges off my trees, as good, I think, as were ever eaten.”
Lady Holland, in 1709, visited a Mr. Talbot at Margram and recorded in her journal: “He has built a magnificent greenhouse for the preservation of some orange trees which belonged to William III.
The architecture is Grecian, which, close to a fine Gothic edifice, denotes more his adherence to the fashion of the times than his judgment in conceiving an appropriate decoration, as the two styles clash and diminish the beauty of both.”
The orange trees mentioned were a present from a Dutch merchant to Queen Mary. The vessel they were being sent was wrecked, and its contents were claimed by the Lord of the Manor, the owner of Margram. He afterward offered to return them but was given them as a gift by the king.
The Versatile Mrs. Delany
In Ireland, the 18th century finds the versatile Mrs. Delany, wife of the Dean of Downs, engrossed in her gardening activities at Delville.
In 1744, she mentioned a terrace walk that took in a sort of a parterre “that will make the prettiest Orangerie in the world.”
A few years later, she wrote of drinking tea in her Orangerie. The characteristic of her writing style is this excerpt from a letter to her brother. “I thank you for your kind hint about my orange trees; when is the proper time for trimming them? I have lost.
One of the variegated sorts, it died of apoplexy, was in appearance healthy when I brought it out on the 20th of May with the rest of my trees, and in a day or two, it dropped. I have not the heart to trim them now. They are so thick-budded to blossom.”
Again Mrs. Delany wrote, “Miss Hamilton is my confectioner today and is at this time making orange-flower bread of my orange flowers, of which I am not a little proud.”
The Fragrance Of The Blossoms
While on a tour of the continent in 1786, Mrs. Anna Burbank’ visited the noble seat of the Prince of Conde at Chantilly, France, and wrote “. . . an Orangery, all the plants of which (some hundreds) being set out and in full blossom diffused the richest perfume I ever was regaled with.’
Rousseau At Versailles
Mention is made of the fact. that Rousseau painted the ceiling of the Orangerie at Versailles in 1695. Lady Holland wrote of this same Orangerie at Versailles in 1802… and so to the Orangerie, where there are trees in tubs as large as any I ever saw growing either at Nice or Naples in the common ground.
One old tree they call Francois Premier, and they add that it is 400 years old. It is satisfactorily proved by a process verbal that it belonged to the constable of Bourbon and was confiscated with the rest of his property, and so came to Francois I.”
Princess Mary, daughter of Caroline and George II, married the German Prince Frederic of Hesse Cassel in 1740. There were great celebrations for the young couple when they came to Cassel, and the Orangerie was the scene of many of the fetes.
Mention is made of playing cards and supping in the Orangerie, and later the evening was concluded with a ball in the Orangerie.
Oranges In Germany
At the Ducal Palace at Stuttgart, capital of Wurttemberg, the memoirs of Charles-Lewis, Baron de Pollnitz, tell us that there was “An Orangery, which is not to be paralleled.
The trees are kept in full Moild, secured by a Roof and a sliding Partition, which they take care to warm in the Winter by several Stoves that make it one continued Summer.”
The Baron also spoke of the King’s royal house at Charlottenburg near Berlin in 1729. It was built by King Frederic I and named for his wife.
“The Orangerie is one of the most magnificent in Europe; not only concerning the Beauty and Number of its Trees but the Greatness of the Building in which they are kept all the Winter.”
44659 by Elizabeth Anne Pullar