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The Orangery, Wakefield
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| The Orangery is situated behind Wakefields Westgate Station on Back Lane and lies within the splendid and surprising remains of the garden belonging to Pemberton Milnes, a prosperous 18th Century Cloth Merchant. In the 1750s he built himself a large town house which still stands today adjacent to the Station. On Milne's death the Town House and gardens passed to his daughter the Dowager Viscountess Galway and it was she, a keen horticulturist, who had the Orangery built in the late 1790s. On her death in 1835 the estate passed to her nephew Robert Pemberton Milnes of Fryston Hall. In 1839 the Orangery was leased and opened on a commercial basis as a horticultural and botanical garden, complete with a bear. It is said that the bear eventually escaped, fatally mauling the keeper's wife, for this reason, or others, the popularity of the gardens declined. The estate was then bought by Daniel Gaskell of Lupset Hall, Wakefield's first MP (1832-1837). He presented the gardens to the trustees of the nearby Westgate Chapel in 1850 and for over 100 years the Orangery was used for a variety of education and recreational purposes. The Orangery was sold in 1991, in 1996 Public Arts the regions formost agency for the commissioning of art in public places, purchased the building for use as their headquarters. |
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