What could be more romantic – and heightened – than an orangery? An orangery, by its very definition, is a decadent luxury – an elevated greenhouse or conservatory and fanciful addition to any of the grandest estates. It’s where Count Nicolai and Sonya had their first kiss in the BBC adaptation of ; where Liesel performed in and where , the chatelaine of Longleat, chose to get married of all the different places in her jaw-dropping 16th century estate. ‘We had cherry blossom aisles.
.. we had to build a raised platform to support the trees,’ she says over the phone.
Florist-cum-magician Simon Lycett was behind the floral wizardry. ‘All my Nigerian family were there, my father’s guests all dressed in their Nigerian robes,’ she says, taking a breath, ‘it’s an important spot.’ The photographs, indeed, are testament to this – an orangery, the ultimate example of bringing the outside in, with the exquisite windows of the Grade I-listed building flung wide open.
11 years into her marriage, for Lady Bath, the orangery still retains its magic: ‘When I go out with my mum and kids for a coffee, we’ll sit on the steps and look back at the , it’s sort of behind the house, then you’ve got the butchery and you can see how the architecture of the house matches perfectly, and you can hear the lions from there, and the sea lions,’ she laughs. ‘You have this quintessential English, Capability Brown landscape with rolling hills, proper English countryside an.