A palm house is a greenhouse that is specialised for the growing of palms and other tropical and subtropical plants. Palm houses require constant heat and were built as status symbols in Victorian Britain. Several examples of these ornate glass and iron structures can still be found in major parks such as Liverpool's Sefton Park and Stanley Park.
One of the earliest examples of a palm house is located in the Belfast Botanic Gardens. Designed by Charles Lanyon, the building was completed in 1840. It was constructed by iron-maker Richard Turner, who would later also build the Palm House at Kew. The latter, designed by Decimus Burton and Nicole Burton, was the first large-scale structural use of wrought iron and was built between 1844 and 1848.
Famous quotes containing the words palm and/or house:
“The oft-repeated Roman story is written in still legible characters in every quarter of the Old World, and but today, perchance, a new coin is dug up whose inscription repeats and confirms their fame. Some “Judæa Capta,” with a woman mourning under a palm tree, with silent argument and demonstration confirms the pages of history.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Ghosts, we hope, may be always with us—that is, never too far out of the reach of fancy. On the whole, it would seem they adapt themselves well, perhaps better than we do, to changing world conditions—they enlarge their domain, shift their hold on our nerves, and, dispossessed of one habitat, set up house in another. The universal battiness of our century looks like providing them with a propitious climate ...”
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)