To people selling their homes, a conservatory can either be a great asset or a growing liability, depending on how well it has been taken care of.
A well-constructed conservatory that has been updated to improve its energy performance, is the right size to be practical, and either had planning permission or met the requirements for permitted development, would likely allow for an increase in the price.
If a conservatory needs repairs, it is better to manage them sooner rather than later in order to avoid problems that could grow more significant later on.
One of the most extreme examples of this was one of Britain’s most famous lost conservatories, which managed the rare feat of collapsing before it had even been completed.
Why was this? Could it have been repaired? And what can Anthaeum’s plight teach us about how to preserve conservatories nearly two centuries later?
What Was Anthaeum And Was The Conservatory Ahead Of Its Time?
During a period of glasshouse development that would eventually become known as the Golden Age of Conservatories in England, Anthaeum in Hove was amongst the most ambitious, fascinating and ultimately doomed projects of them all.
Developed by landscape gardener Henry Phillips and architect Amon Henry Wilds, the Athenaeum was to be the crowning centrepiece of Adelaide Crescent, a residential area on Hove’s seafront, at the time a growing neighbour to the more famous city of Brighton.
It was an evolution of an 1825 design called Athenaeum set to be constructed in Brighton before financial difficulties ended it, but the support of Sir Isaac Goldsmid, 1st Baronet, helped to expand his ambitions.
The goal was a 19th-century version of the Eden Project; it was to be a grand subscription garden and tourist attraction which would bring together flora and fauna from all around the world.
It was even set to be the largest dome ever constructed, built using a set of 1.5m wide ribs of iron that would be connected to a central internal pillar providing a route to a rooftop observatory.
Had it been completed, it would have been the largest dome of any type in the world and the largest glazed building of any kind in the world, with a reputation of a pre-fire Crystal Palace or Kew Gardens.
So what went wrong?
What Happened To The Anthaeum Conservatory?
The planned structure, had it been constructed according to its specifications, likely would have survived at least to its opening day, but ultimately something went badly wrong during the construction phase.
Mr Wilds and Mr Phillips commissioned a Mr C Hollis as the chief engineer and a building contractor only known to history as Mr English.
All four men had their own views on how the project should be constructed and failed to communicate with each other, and Mr English’s team ultimately refused to follow the brief and build the central pillar.
The exact reason why is lost to history, but the two largest theories are that Mr English wanted to build the world’s largest unsupported dome in history (then held by the Pantheon in Rome) or that the iron foundry Mr English owned had fallen behind and could not supply enough iron in time.
Mr Wilds resigned in protest, more than aware of what would come next, as did Mr Hollis following an argument about the pillar.
On 29th August 1833, Mr Henry consulted with the civil engineer Sir John Rennie the Younger as to whether the building was safe to start removing the scaffolding holding up the roof of the dome.
Mr English started to take it down regardless, with speculation that he was furious that his judgment was once again being questioned.
His work was completed the following day, and just an hour later, a deafening crack sounded, followed by an even louder one before the entire structure collapsed in on itself. Mr Henry was so shocked by the collapse of his life’s work that he went blind.
Mr English fled the country not long after, with his last known whereabouts being in the city of Boulogne in Northern France.
Could The Anthaeum Conservative Have Been Repaired?
Whilst what went wrong is clear, and the central pillar would have stopped it from collapsing quite as dramatically as it did, would it have been possible to rebuild the conservatory, given that the mangled remains were an ironic tourist attraction for the next 20 years?
The answer is that it would have been possible but expensive; Charles Busby expressed interest in rebuilding the Anthaeum, but with an estimated cost of £10,000 (over £1m adjusted for inflation), the plan disappeared quickly.
Joseph Paxton would have much more success with The Crystal Palace, but he asked if the Anthaeum designs were still available.
Ultimately, any attempts to repair the conservatory wreckage were definitively ended with the development of Palmeira Square on the same grounds.