Pteridomania

Fig 1.

The term ‘pteridomania’ was coined in 1855 by Charles Kingsley, (author of The Water Babies). Ferns were seen as being sufficiently unsexual for young ladies to study and in his book Glaucus Kingsley paints a horrifying picture of the choices open to respectable women: “you cannot deny that they find enjoyment in it, and are more active, more cheerful, more self-forgetful over it, than they would have been over novels and gossip, crochet or Berlin wool.”

Ferneries came in many sizes and the glass covered cases shown in Figures 1 & 1a were admirably suited to Victorian town dwellers who lived with high levels of air pollution. The fern had no flowers to be spoilt by soot and survive in low light and damp conditions.

Fig 1a.

For those people with a larger garden and perhaps living in the cleaner air of the suburbs, Shirley Hibbard recommended making a grotto or hermit’s cell with a circle of dead trees roofed with loppings and floored with the dead roots. He then planted up spare ferns within the damp shade and then left it to nature. He said that ‘in this way I can into the possession of one of the prettiest ferneries I have ever seen’

Fig 2.

For the grander houses the repeal of the Glass Tax in 1845 and the advent of the curved glazing bar meant that large Ferneries were practical. Figure 2 shows Tatton Park constructed by Joseph Paxton to house exotic tree ferns and ferns some of which were brought back from New Zealand and Australia by Captain Charles Randle Egerton in the 1850s.

Some ferneries were on a much grander scale and outdoors. A marvellous example, which is being restored by a dedicated group of Friends, is Danesbury close to the A1 and Welwyn in Hertfordshire. William Robinson said ‘In the home counties there is probably not a better fernery than that at Danesbury.’ He goes on to describe how the ferns are planted in family groups. It was constructed by Anthony Parson in 1869 – 1860 for his employer William John Blake. Mr Parsons wrote in The Gardeners Chronicle, “I have had to make a hardy fernery, which now contains a magnificent collection of British Ferns, and is well known to many admirers of these truly lovely plants.” He was Head gardener at Danesbury for nearly 30 years and was famous for plant breeding and even had a fern named after him - Gymnogramma chrysophylla parsonii.

Fig 3a.

The site was an old chalk pit and is one of the best examples of a Pulhamite construction. Although the rocks appear to be sandstone in fact J.R. Pulham and Co. from Broxbourne made them using a core of brick and rubble which they then covered in cement. The Pulhamite was used to create a cave and rocky ‘pass’ which can be seen in Figure 3b as well as a dropping well. In May 2018 the Victorian underground irrigation system for the principal planting beds was discovered. Exactly how these pipes fit in with the cistern, discovered in 2017 which holds hundreds of gallons of water, and a basin at the foot of the dropping well is as yet unclear.

Pteridomania lasted for over 50 years but once it became unfashionable places like Danesbury were abandoned and in its case became overgrown and untouched for over a century (Figure 3a).

Fig 3b

Images: Figures 1 & 1a, Pinterest; Figure 2, Tatton Park from their website; Figures 3 a & b, Danesbury Fernery before and after restoration. Photograph a. Danesbury website, and b. courtesy of Kate Harwood.