Kylemore Abbey Victorian Walled Garden glasshouses

Kylemore's walled garden was begun in 1867 by Mitchell Henry, a wealthy Manchester surgeon, at the same time as the castle he was building in Connemara; the work was finished in 1871. Intended to supply the estate, it had 21 heated glasshouses and, according to the abbey, a workforce of up to 40 gardeners. Bananas, melons, nectarines, pineapples, grapes, figs and tomatoes were grown, as well as coffee and medicinal herbs.

Decline came in the twentieth century. By the 1940s the flower garden lay in ruins, and the kitchen garden lost its purpose once it became cheaper to buy vegetables. By the 1990s brambles and shrubs covered the site, large trees grew where the flowerbeds had been, the glasshouses had gone and most of the garden buildings had collapsed.

The Benedictine nuns of the abbey, led by Sister Magdalena Fitzgibbon, then took on the restoration. The project was accepted by the Great Gardens of Ireland programme, grant-aided by the European Regional Development Fund; according to The Irish Times, the community had to borrow to match a £500,000 grant, and work began in September 1996. The garden reopened at Easter 2000 with a first rebuilt glasshouse, the old vinery. A second glasshouse followed, along with the Head Gardener's House and the workmen's bothy, and the restoration won a Europa Nostra award in 2001.

Kylemore's walled garden covers six acres, about 2.4 hectares, and is divided into two parts, a flower garden and a kitchen garden, separated by a stream lined with woodland and ferns. In Mitchell Henry's day it had 21 heated glasshouses, which the head gardener Ann Golden described in 2000 as a range of ornamental glasshouses of spectacular shapes.

They were heated by three boilers, one of which doubled as a limekiln, and by a system of hot-water pipes 1,524 metres (5,000 feet) long, which made it possible to ripen tropical fruit on Ireland's Atlantic coast.

When restoration began, only the bases of the glasshouses were left. Two of them have been rebuilt, as have the Head Gardener's House and the bothy where the garden workers lived, which together show how a large Victorian garden was run. The sources consulted give neither the designer of the original glasshouses nor the dimensions or materials of the rebuilt ones.

In Mitchell Henry's time the glasshouses grew exotic fruit for the castle table: bananas, melons, nectarines, pineapples, wine grapes, figs and tomatoes, along with coffee and medicinal herbs.

Today one of the two rebuilt glasshouses is open to visitors and shows examples of the exotic plants enjoyed by the Henry family and their guests. The second, used for propagation, remains largely closed to the public: visitors can only peek in through the door. Around the glasshouses, the restored flower garden and kitchen garden recall the twofold purpose, ornamental and productive, of the Victorian garden.

The walled garden lies about a mile (1.6 km) from the castle that is now Kylemore Abbey, in Connemara, County Galway. It can be reached by a shuttle bus included in the admission ticket or on foot along paths through the estate. Allow an hour for the garden, the glasshouse open to visitors and the restored Head Gardener's House and bothy. A visit combines naturally with the abbey and the rest of the estate; the warmer months are best for the flowerbeds of the flower garden and the crops of the kitchen garden.