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What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye.
I’m posting an image every two days (or as often as I can). A photo, an image from the internet, a diagram or a map. Whatever takes my fancy.
The Montalto Estate in County Down had an extensive fruit and vegetable garden to supply the house year round with freshly harvested crops. Greenhouses were an important feature, providing out-of-season crops and exotic fruits like pineapples and citrus. These greenhouses needed heating in the winter months and this was supplied by wide-bore cast iron pipes below the plant benches.
The remains of some of these pipes are visible in the photo. They usually ran in pairs; there were no circulating pumps, instead the boiler would be below ground in a stokehole and the hot water would rise and flow by gravity acting on the changes in density. Hot water rose in the system and the returning pipes contained cooler, denser water that flowed down, re-entered the boiler and warmed up again.
I remember greenhouse heating systems just like this from my childhood, my father had a role in the family business at that time, a nursery with greenhouses full of cuttings and seedlings and houseplants that needed heating during the winter. There was a wonderful smell of greenery, the pipes were always warm, yet never too hot to touch, delicate maidenhair ferns grew wild around the pipework below the benches and these were allowed to remain because the fronds were always useful in making bouquets and buttonholes for sale in the shop in town, or for weddings and other occasions. Even on cold, frosty days you’d want to take off your coat, hat and gloves if you went into a greenhouse!
Modern glasshouses are very different, they have oil or gas fired systems controlled automatically on demand by thermostats, and the heat may be distributed by water pipes or by fan-blown air circulation.
Images from our Irish holiday 2024
For convenience, here’s a list of all the Irish holiday images:
28th Jul – Welsh Botanic Garden, Robin, Fishguard
29th Jul – Wicklow Mts, Glendalough, Powerscourt, Rose, Greystones
30th Jul – Liffey, Temple Bar, St Patrick’s Cathedral
31st Jul – Newgrange, Battle of the Boyne
1st Aug – Monasterboice, Mourne, Thrift, Window
2nd Aug – Spelga Dam, Hydrangea, Pipework, Lough Neagh
3rd Aug – Coagh, Springhill, Portrush
4th Aug – Beach at Portrush
5th Aug – Giant’s Causeway, Carrick-a-Rede, Portrush
Themed image collections
The links below will take you to the first post in each collection
Cirencester, Favourites, Irish holiday 2024, Roman villa
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Journeys of Heart and Mind 
The boiler in the stoke hole on our father’s nursery was reached by a cast iron ladder, which as a child i always thought looked rather perilous! I remember him having to take his turn to stoke the boiler on Christmas day to keep all the plants in good condition. I also remember a badger falling into the stoke hole and having to be rescued by the RSPCA. They got him out safely, but before they could check him over he went scuttling away, never to be seen again!
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I remember it well, I have a photo of the boiler in the stokehole at Montalto and thought I might post that soon as well, mentioning some of the same things you put in your comment. Maybe, but not just yet awhile. I can add another stokhole event, an elderly customer driving a very heavy Rover car, drove one of the wheels over the edge of the hole and the car was well and truly stuck! I remember Dad telling us all about it.
I also recall that the boiler needed raking out and stoking morning and evening, so when Dad volunteered to do it at Christmas or New Year it involved two trips each day, and sometimes real effort to get the gate padlock free if it had rained and then frozen. I think Harold Tanner and other foremen also took turns, but Dad earned their respect and friendship by taking it on sometimes so they didn’t have to. I don’t think the other brothers would have done that. And perhaps they wouldn’t even have known how to!
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Oh yes! I remember the car as well. Dad told us lots of stories about his time at work! I’m quite sure the brothers wouldn’t have had a clue about stoking and raking out, and yes, how like him to give the workers a break.
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