An orangery is a single-storey room built partly of brick, with tall windows between the piers and a mostly solid roof broken by a raised glass lantern. It began as a winter house for citrus trees and is now most often a kitchen or dining room.
The word comes from exactly what you would guess. From the seventeenth century, owners of large houses in northern Europe built orangeries to keep orange and lemon trees alive through the winter. The trees stood outside in tubs for the summer and were wheeled in before the first frost.
Kensington, Kew and the first orangeries
They were masonry buildings with a row of very tall windows along the south side and a solid wall to the north. The roof was ordinary slate or lead; the glass was all in the walls. Heat came from stoves or from flues running under the floor. The orangery at Kensington Palace, finished in 1705, and the one at Kew, built in 1761, are both of this kind, and both are still standing.
Glazed roofs came later, when sheet glass and cast iron became cheap in the nineteenth century. That is the point at which the conservatory, a building that is nearly all glass, split off as its own type.
The modern orangery, feature by feature
Builders and buyers use the word today for a single-storey room that has all four of these:
- A flat, insulated roof with a plastered ceiling inside.
- A roof lantern, a raised glazed structure set into the flat roof, bringing light into the middle of the room.
- Masonry in the walls, as corner piers, low walls or full-height panels, usually in brick to match the house.
- Tall glazing, often as French doors or bifolds, between the piers.
Seen from the garden, an orangery reads as part of the house. Seen from inside, the ceiling around the lantern makes it feel like a room and not a glasshouse.
Orangery or conservatory: how to tell
Look up. A conservatory roof is glass or polycarbonate from edge to edge, and its frames run almost unbroken round the walls. It costs less and is brighter, but it is cold in January and hot in July. An orangery trades some of that light for a plastered ceiling and solid corners, and the room stays closer to the temperature of the house.
Planning rules make no distinction between the two. Building regulations do, indirectly: the exemption for conservatories depends on most of the roof being glazed, which an orangery deck is not.
Orangery or extension
Less than you might think. An orangery is an extension with a particular look: generous glazing, a lantern and classical proportions. Many builders would describe the same room as a flat-roofed extension with a rooflight if you asked for it that way. The practical difference is the amount of glass, which affects how the room is heated and how it is assessed under the energy rules.
How they are used now
Most new ones are kitchens or dining rooms, joined to the house through a wide opening. The lantern suits a table or an island, and the solid walls give units and furniture somewhere to stand. They are also built as sitting rooms, garden rooms and, on larger houses, as the link between the main house and an outbuilding.
Very few now hold orange trees, though a lemon in a pot will do well under a lantern if the room is kept above about 5°C in winter.
Price
Size and frame material set most of the price, with uPVC the least expensive and hardwood the most. Our orangery cost guide has typical figures and a calculator.
Sources and how the figures are worked out
Rules are for England unless the text says otherwise, and are general guidance. Your council decides for your house.