In the 1750s prosperous local cloth merchant Pemberton Milnes built for himself a large town house on the town’s main thoroughfare, Westgate. The Dowager Viscountess of Galway inherited the house and land from her father in 1795 and ordered the building of The Orangery shortly after. Orangeries were popular in the 1800s with wealthy families that could afford to build these south-facing, glass fronted buildings to grow exotic plants and entertain. Parts of the original Orangery were demolished between 1823 and 1848 and the front walls of the existing wings are all that survive of the original structure. Further changes throughout the 19th century make for The Orangery as it is today.
closing in 1842 to become a public bathing establishment. askell, Wakefield’s first MP, Daniel Gaskell, inherited The Orangery in 1849, tees presenting the gardens to the Trustees el in of nearby Westgate Unitarian Chapel 1850. At that time the Lodge by the main hapel gate, as well as a tunnel linking the Chapel with the Orangery, were built. In the same gh the decade the railway was driven through ess of property, beginning the long process The Orangery disappearing from public aised. view as the land around it was raised. The buildings were to be used as a nonldren denominational school for poor children but the venture was unsuccessful and nancy private schools regularly took tenancy efieldof the space up until 1957. Wakefi ading born writer George Gissing, a leading nd a 19th Century English novelist and ent to contemporary of Thomas Hardy, went school here. eyard The gardens became used as a graveyard oday. and many of the stones remain today. nt in Of particular interest is a monument memory of Joseph Horner, a corn miller nising and one of the early Chartists, recognising gious, his “consistent advocacy of religious, moral, social and political rights and liberties for the people”.
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Photograph by TopicUK photographer Julian Dyer (Liquid Squid)
After the Dowager’s death in 1835 (aged 81) The Orangery was leased as a commercial space and in 1839 it became a zoological garden. One of its main attractions was a dancing bear, popular across the country at the time. One story has it that the bear escaped and mauled to death the keeper’s wife. For some reason the zoo then quickly fell out of favour with visitors,
Beam is an arts, architecture and education charity that was established in 1986 as ‘Public Arts’. The company is dedicated to the imaginative understanding and improvement of public spaces and helps people make better places through learning and education, the promotion of good design, and the imaginative use of the arts in these open areas.
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The Orangery was bought in 1996 by the charity Public Arts (now Beam) and underwent extensive refurbishment, and is now owned by Wakefield Council. The present Wakefield ‘Merchantgate’ development, which includes moving the railway station to the north of The Orangery and plans for a new hotel, public park and pedestrianised square, ensures that the three historic sites - Pemberton House, the Unitarian Chapel and The Orangery - will be visually and physically linked once again.
The Orangery Back Lane, Wakefield WF1 2TG www.the-orangery.uk.net contact@beam.uk.net / 01924 215 550 Twitter: @The Orangery / Facebook: OrangeryWakefield