How to Force a Melon

One of Thomas G Messenger's forcing houses

One of the benefits of undertaking research into gardens, such as the ones we have at Betley Court is that sometimes a new name pops up, someone you didn’t know existed, never mind played an important but role in its history. I found one this week, a Victorian businessman called Thomas G Messenger who hailed from Leicestershire. At first sight, it might be hard to understand why a man, who joined his uncle’s Loughborough-based plumbing and glazing firm as a young man, would end up having anything to do with a country house in Staffordshire in 1868. However, Messenger was an inventive man, and his skills and knowledge in glazing and hot water heating placed him very well in one particular area of Victorian enterprise – the newly fashionable heated greenhouse.  

These days, we take it for granted that we can pop into any local supermarket and buy fruit and vegetables all year round. All notion of them being ‘in season’ has gone out of the window. Spanish strawberries all year round (although they are never as nice as British strawberries which seem to be at their best during Wimbledon fortnight!). No longer do we have to wait for asparagus season at the end of April and just for a few weeks. I can purchase asparagus grown in Peru, airfreighted to my local Asda! It wasn’t always so, and foods historically had distinctive season when they were available, often to excess, with gluts being saved as pickles and preserves to spread out variety throughout the year. There were lean periods too, without variety and quantity. But, if you were in the position of wealth to stretch out those seasons of the availability of freshly harvested fruit and veg, why wouldn’t you?

Thomas Fletcher Twemlow and his wife Eliza were in such a position, and their occupancy at Betley Court marks a period of great expenditure and innovation to improve the house and grounds. Although a large range of greenhouses was already built at Betley Court, Messenger was employed in 1868 to design and install heating into them, creating forcing houses. You might not be familiar with the term, but a forcing house is a very warm greenhouse. By growing plants in them, the season of harvest can be extended, and tender plant grown pretty much all year round – importantly, those lean months in winter and early spring. How swanky to be able to enjoy seasonal produce out of season. What better way to impress when entertaining guests?

Span roof cucumber house

The records for Thomas G Messenger’s business also reveal the only reference specifically for a melon house. Imagine, melons grown at Betley Court in the Midlands of England! The melon house ordered comprised a 36ft by 12 feet roof span. Given the optimum length of a glass range was considered to 30-36 feet, this was a good- sized structure. The other interesting aspect is that the melon house was to be partitioned to provide ideal growing conditions for both melons AND cucumbers – a little insight into the eating habits of the Fletcher Twemlows. I’m not sure how this was achieved in practice as their growing requirements are slightly different; melons need more light, cucumbers more heat.

Melon house

Sadly, nothing remains of Messenger’s forcing houses today. The land the walled gardens and greenhouses occupied were sold for development in the 70s, prior to the Browns buying Betley Court. Although a few little greenhouse artefacts can be found, all thanks to Nigel’s magpie tendencies. He moved to Betley Court as a sixteen-year-old with his family, and the old walled garden and greenhouses, in the process of being demolished, made an enticing playground for him and his brothers. He scrumped a quantity of the iron grills that had covered the void spaces the hot water pipes in the forcing houses, reasoning they might come in useful one day. Indeed, they did. You can still see them today, some covering the overflow that feeds the eel trap in the dam, others fashioned into a ‘wellhead’ that surrounds a water softener (a sort of indoors well in what would have been the scullery). I wonder what Thomas G messenger would make of that?

All best wishes

Ladybird Su

PS I am indebted to this website:

https://tgmessenger.co.uk/  for information about Thomas G Messenger and his innovative greenhouse designs.