Walking around the walled garden at Trewidden, near Penzance, on a recent trip to Cornwall, my attention was caught by two lines of bricks and, possibly, slate, set in a v-shape. According to the notice by its side, what I was looking at was a Curate’s Vinery or Ground Vinery, a popular way of growing a single vine in the Victorian and Edwardian era and that these were, possibly, the only surviving examples in Britain.
With the change in climate, there are now around 900 vineyards in the UK, covering about 10,000 acres and producing twelve million bottles of wine in 2022, but hitherto vines used to be grown in glasshouses, which were relatively expensive to build and maintain. A Curate’s vinery, which is essentially little different from a cold frame, was an inexpensive alternative.
This method of growing vines might have been introduced by the Dutch. William Speechley informed his readers in Treatise on the culture of the Vine (1790) that “The Dutch also have a method of forcing vines in the open ground, the shoots of which are trained in an horizontal position, about 18 inches from the ground. Over the vines, which are forced in the summer, they put frames as flat as those commonly made for melons”.
Catalogues from nurseries issued in the first half of the 20th century sometimes provided instructions on how to construct a ground vinery, like these that appeared in Read’s catalogue: “The vinery should be about 7 feet long, 3 feet wide, and 2 feet high at the centre. The ends should be boarded with the top 4 inches left open for ventilation. The site should be well drained and sunny, and the vinery should stand NE/SW with the south facing side hinged to fully open. Having marked out the site, lay 2 rows 18 inch square paving slabs bedded on sharp sand. On the slabs place 2 rows of bricks lengthwise, leaving half a brick space between each for ventilation. The vine should be planted outside one end in a well prepared bed. The vine rod lies along the centre of the slabs grown as a single cordon. The bunches lie on straw on the slabs which, being heated by the sun, ripen early”.
The structure was intended to be temporary which explains why the example at Trewidden is so unusual. And why a curate’s vinery? A curate was at the bottom of the clerical ladder and the ground vinery was so cheap to construct that even he could afford one. If you are in the Penzance area, seek it out.
windowthroughtime 