Back in bloom
A SLIGHTLY decadent wilderness of smashed Georgian glass and 30ft-tall camellias with trunks as thick as trees—plants once valued as highly as van Dyck paintings—confronted the Wentworth Woodhouse Preservation Trust (WWPT) when, in 2017, it bought the South Yorkshire house and accompanying buildings. The Grade II*-listed Camellia House, a ‘derelict shell’ on the Heritage at Risk Register, has now been restored to its former glory and reopened last week.
Built as a tea house in 1738, where the resident 1st Marchioness of Rockingham could entertain friends, it was converted into a Camellia House in 1812 by the 4th Earl Fitzwilliam, who had inherited both the estate and a passion for exotic plants from his uncle, the 2nd Marquess of Rockingham. During the 19th century, the prized building, which would have been extravagantly expensive to heat, housed some 30 camellias—each cost the equivalent of a housemaid’s annual salary and we know of at least one proposal, to Lady Donatia Fitzwilliam, that took place among its colourful blooms (she said yes). Sadly, once the family left in the 1980s, much of the estate, including the main house, fell into dereliction.
Five years ago, the head gardener, Scott Jamieson, discovered that many of the 19 camellias that then still existed dated back to the early 19th century, making them some of the oldest in the Western world, according to the International Camellia Society. A £5 million restoration ensued, funded with £4 million from the National Lottery Heritage Fund and some £614,000 from Historic England,
