Raise tender plants in glasshouses through the winter and plant them out in early summer, massed in beds cut in the lawn or on a terrace, in blocks, ribbons or patterns of a few strong colours; lift them in autumn and replant for the next season.
Rules · Roofs · Structure · Light · Materials
The ridge-and-furrow roof
Glaze a roof in a series of small ridges and valleys, the panes set at an angle on light sash bars, so that the low sun of morning and evening strikes the glass more squarely, the roof is stiffened by its folds, and the rain runs into gutters in the furrows.
Paxton, as gardener at Chatsworth, wanted more light for his plants. He reasoned, after Loudon, that a roof folded into ridges and furrows running north–south would present glass at a good angle to the sun in the morning and evening, when a flat roof reflects most of it. He used it on a small glasshouse in the 1830s, on the Great Conservatory (1836–41), and on the Lily House (1849–50), a flat roof of ridges and furrows on iron beams over a tank for the giant Amazon water lily, whose ribbed leaf, he said, had given him the idea of a light, ribbed structure.
On the Crystal Palace the ridges were 8 feet apart, glazed with panes 49 inches long; the furrow gutters, of timber, were grooved to carry rain outside and condensation inside, and carried the rain to the hollow cast-iron columns, which were also the drainpipes.
Related rules
Build on a single grid of 24 feet, set by the 8-foot spacing of the roof ridges and the size of the largest pane of glass, so that every column, girder, sash bar and pane is one of a few standard parts that can be made by machine, delivered and bolted together in any number.
pane 49 × 10 in · ridge 8 ft · bay 24 ft · spans 24, 48, 72 ft · 1,848 × 408 ft
Place perfectly hardy plants, foreign as well as native, in woods, meadows, banks and the edges of water where they will thrive and spread without further care, instead of renewing tender bedding every year.
Give each room the aspect that suits the hours it is used: the drawing room to the south-east, the morning room to the east, the library a little east of south-east, the dining room to the north or north-east, cool and out of the evening sun, and the kitchen and offices to the north; the best aspect of all is south-east, the worst south-west.
Let the principal room of the front stand out in a bay window, canted or square, under its own gable: more light, a view along the street as well as across it, and a front that shows where the best room is.
Cite this page Chris Paton, “The ridge-and-furrow roof”, The Textbook of Architecture, https://textbookofarchitecture.com/rule/paxton-ridge-and-furrow. Text, drawings and models licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0.