Reasons for Designation
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Details
STALMINE WITH STAYNALL
281/0/10012 FOXFIELDS
06-AUG-10 (Off)
THE PEACH WALL
II
Heated kitchen garden wall. Early C19. Red, hand-made brick, with squared stone foundation and sandstone dressings.
PLAN: Rectangular with curved corners. Approximately 51 metres by 41 metres. Long, north-east side and shorter north-west side intact. Short section of west end of south-west side; south-east side truncated just beyond east curved corner.
Garden wall is aligned diagonally with north, south, east, and west corners. Built in English garden wall bond set on a coursed, squared stone foundation (only visible along part of outer elevation of north-west side) with ashlar coping. The land is lower outside the walls, and height varies along its length. Double-skin construction with north-east and north-west stretches containing three rows of interconnecting flues running along their lengths.
Outer elevation of north-east side is c. 3.5 metres high, stepping up at the north corner to c.4 metres. Eight stepped buttresses along outer length (the first located on the east curved corner), and occasional squared stone tie blocks set into wall face. Projecting rectangular, brick fireplace between third and fourth buttresses (from left), with two small hearth openings at ground-level. Wall just above the fireplace is slightly battered, before returning to the perpendicular. Three flues along length of north-east side accessible by small cavities with segmental-arched heads. These are very numerous, but not consistently placed; generally placed in vertical rows, though not all positioned exactly above each other, and each row does not always provide cavities for all three flues. Majority of cavities have been blocked up flush, using hand-made bricks, but cavities to right of eighth buttress remain open; brick rebates to sides. East curved corner has ragged truncation as the wall returns into south-east side. North curved corner is stepped out a further brick's width below height of the second row of flues. Projecting courses are coped with slates and continue along approximately half the length of the outer elevation of the north-west side to a point where entire height of wall steps out. Projecting rectangular, brick fireplace on north corner, coped with slates, with two small openings at ground-level, now blocked. Vertical row of two lower levels of flues to each side of fireplace, all now blocked.
Outer elevation of north-west side is c. 4 metres high, rising to approximately 5 metres high at the right-hand end, before stepping down again to c.4 metres at the curved west corner. Stepped part of wall, to left-hand side, has four regularly spaced vertical rows, each of three flues. No apparent flues where full height of wall thickens (partially obscured by plants). To right of centre is a single-storey, lean-to shed, constructed of similar brick, with some rebuilding to south-west side wall. Corrugated asbestos roof. Front elevation has wide inserted opening with wooden double doors, and single doorway to right, with plank door. Adjacent is taller section of wall. Wide doorway at left-hand end with monolithic stone lintel with pecked dressing. Now with recessed blocking of white brick. Two vertical rows of flues, now blocked, and an open single upper flue to right. Wall white-washed to line above upper flues. At right-hand end is projecting rectangular, brick fireplace, now blocked. Beyond, a truncated wall, possibly a boundary wall, projects in a north-easterly direction, with a lower level of cobbles and rough hand-made bricks above, later heightened with better quality hand-made bricks.
Outer elevation of south-west side is c.4 metres high, stepping down to c.3 metres, and has no flues.
Inner elevation of north-east side has small, brick-sized openings regularly spaced two rows of bricks below the coping. Inner elevations of north-west side and south-west side are plain brick walls, with no apparent features (partially obscured by plants and buildings).
HISTORY: This heated fruit wall is associated with Stalmine Hall, an early-C19 house apparently built for the Bourne family; the adjacent church has a marble memorial to James Bourne of Stalmine Hall, who died on 28 November 1816. The wall was heated by small fireplaces sending heated air and smoke up into serpentine flues, a method used from the early C18, and superseded by the mid to late C19 by hollow walls heated by hot water pipes. The 1890 Ordnance Survey map shows a glass house against the inner elevation of the south-west side, which is no longer present. More recently a mobile home residential site has been established partially within the walled garden.
SOURCES
Campbell, S, 'A Few Guidelines for the Conservation of Old Kitchen Gardens', Garden History, Vol 13, No.1 (Spring 1985), 68-74.
Susan Campbell, Walled Kitchen Gardens, (1998), 17-18.
REASONS FOR DESIGNATION
The heated garden wall, known as the Peach Wall, at Stalmine, Lancashire, is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural: A good example of heated brick garden walls, which formed two sides of an originally four-walled kitchen garden.
Detailing: The three surviving corners are smoothly curved, an unusual design feature intended to remove frost traps.
Historical: The heated walls evidence the growing of exotic fruits for a gentry household in the early C19.
