Greenhouses of the walled kitchen garden of Twickel Castle (Ironhouse, carnation house, pits)

The present Twickel kitchen garden dates from 1891: the monuments register attributes it to a design by the German landscape architect C.E.A. Petzold. According to the study Kassen in Nederland 1650-1950 (Ben Kooij), the old kitchen garden lay before 1887 opposite the castle, across the road; it was moved on Petzold's advice, his plan being carried out between 1887 and 1891 under Baron R.F. van Heeckeren van Wassenaer. The new garden covered nearly 3 ha, employed as many as thirty people and also produced flowers for the baron, among them carnations and roses. The greenhouses, grouped in the south-east corner near the eastern entrance, came after the first frames, in several phases.

The register dates the Ironhouse and its small seed house to 1911 and credits Messenger & Co. of Leicestershire; the study describes an iron table house put up in 1897 by the Dutch firm Richel for 5,667.65 guilders including heating, Messenger renewing the heating in 1912 and then labelling it 'ironhouse' on its plans. The three pits date from 1891 for the register; the study sees frames of that period which Messenger partly converted into glasshouses around 1915. The carnation house is dated 1915 by both sources.

After the Second World War the garden declined; it was closed down in 1977. About twenty years later restoration began: the iron house was restored in 1993 with many volunteers, and the group was entered in the monuments register on 3 September 1997. According to the Twickel foundation, the garden had nearly become a car park.

Three kinds of greenhouse stand together in the south-east corner of the garden. The Ironhouse, according to the register, rests on a brick base; its cast-iron roof, in an obtuse pointed arch, carries soft-green tinted glass, and an identical small seed house is attached on the south side. A double steel door in the north gable opens onto the hothouses. The study Kassen in Nederland adds that the glass follows the curve at the foot of the roof, that the frame is made of solid-web iron trusses, that some of the old green glass survives and that shading is provided by slats rolled out horizontally.

The carnation house, of timber painted white on a red brick base with a cavity wall, measures 3.70 m by 18.54 m: two compartments of six bays separated by a glazed partition, under a gabled roof, with glass standing on the low wall. The study notes careful ventilation (ridge vents, hinged lights, grilles in the low wall) and the name Messenger cast into the handles.

The three pits, finally, are half-sunken: walls of sandstone blocks, glazed shed roofs facing south, timber doors with small panes in the east gables. The study gives ten timber sashes per house and a floor about 70 cm below ground level.

Today the kitchen garden still does its job: according to the Twickel foundation, the annuals that decorate the estate's vases are raised there, together with cut flowers for the bouquets in the castle and in the neighbouring restaurants, and the vegetables go to the estate's catering venues. A 2013 blog reports that the pits were used to grow grapes and photographs clones of the old citrus trees beside the carnation house.

The study Kassen in Nederland records the former uses. The table house held stephanotis, bougainvillea, strelitzia, banana (Musa), asparagus, orchids and ferns, with heliotrope, salvia and the lavender 'Twickel Purple' on the side tables; gladioli, cannas and dahlias were stored beneath. In the carnation house, a list of 1916-1917 records more than twenty varieties, mostly large-flowered pink and white ones. The study adds that carnations are still grown there, the only such case on a Dutch country estate; the current official pages say nothing of it.

The walled kitchen garden stands at the corner of the Bornsestraat and the Twickelerlaan, north-west of the castle park, at Ambt Delden. The Twickel foundation points to monumental greenhouses, trained fruit trees, vegetables and cut flowers, with volunteers on hand to explain. A 2013 blog shows the interior of the greenhouses. Opening days differ (Wednesday to Saturday according to the foundation; Wednesday and Friday afternoons, the sales days, according to visithofvantwente.nl): it is best to check. The visit combines with the castle gardens, which have a separate entrance, and their orangery, a tea room in summer.