Documents

This advertisement was placed in the newspaper by Henry Trevor as he opened his shop in Exchange Street (then called Post-Office Street) which ran from the market square down to the river. The salesmanship is skilful: the wide range of products, their modernity, high quality and low prices, combined with promises of personal attention to a wide range of customers over a wide area are all such enticements as might be offered today. Today, though, a customer would not expect to have to read so many words in an initial approach! Henry Trevor also differs from modern practice with his strict insistence on ready money only!

Henry Trevor was only 23 when he set up shop on his own account. As the advertisement says he had been an assistant to Mr Gray, whose shop was nearby. Mr Gray was happy to support Henry who was about to marry his eldest daughter, the widow Mrs. Mary Page. The business was very successful and it was in part the profit from this which enabled Henry to create the Plantation garden.

See PGPT079 for discussion of Henry Trevor’s advertisement. Here more of the surrounding advertisements are shown, giving a picture of commercial activity in Norwich when Henry Trevor opened his shop.

Shirley Hibberd’s book, first published in the year in which Henry Trevor built the Plantation, was an enormous success, going into several reprints. Henry Trevor’s garden shows its influence very strongly: here can be seen the tall urn on a pedestal (see PGPT002) in front of a rustic summerhouse (see PGPT331/2), the rustic style of the seat reminding us of Henry Trevor’s rustic bridge (see PGPT304) The flint buttresses of Henry Trevor’s fountain are also very similar to an illustration for the ‘Marine Aquarium’. Henry Trevor, as a man who sold fashion, would have wanted to show his garden also as an example of good taste.

In the description of the Palm house in the 1897 auction particulars there is mention of a saddle boiler which heated the 1000′ of hot water piping in the Palm house. It is known that B & P supplied the Palm house in 1871, so it seems probable that they also supplied a saddle boiler of a type similar to this one from a later catalogue.

When the Trust decided to build a shelter in the entrance yard of the garden (originally the site of glasshouses and fruit stores) the Boulton & Paul catalogue was consulted, since Henry Trevor had used their design for his Palm House. This drawing, no. 653 in the catalogue, provided a suitable model.

The rustic bridges shown in these photographs are very similar to the rustic bridge in a 1930s photograph of the rustic bridge in the Plantation Garden. As Henry Trevor obtained his Palm House from Boulton and Paul, it is very probable that he also obtained his rustic bridge from the same firm.

The interest of this drawing of one pattern of cast iron cresting which Boulton & Paul could supply with its conservatories is that this design can be seen clearly along the edge of the Palm House in PGPT001.

Boulton & Paul produced a wide range of glass houses, taking advantage of their popularity in the second half of the 19c after the impression made by the Great Exhibition in 1851. Here 3 designs are shown: upper left, a 3/4 span for a Norwich customer, also sold to other customers in Norfolk and Sussex: lower left, a ‘very pleasing design’, which won a silver medal at a Paris exhibition in 1878. The curved design of the roof and pointed tops of the windows of this conservatory are very similar to the Plantation Palm House (PGPT003). A detailed description of the house on the right also gives materials, building methods and prices. From this we can estimate that Henry Trevor must have paid well over £200 for his Palm House and Winter Garden.

On the left, a ‘check end saddle boiler’, of interest because the 1897 auction particulars inform us that the Palm House was heated ‘by two saddle boilers in an underground stoke-hole, approached by a glazed entrance, and with brick flue and chimney, well screened by trees’. The glazed entrance can be seen to the right of the Palm House in PGPT003, and was reproduced in 2000. The underground hole still exists, not yet made safe for public viewing, and the flue has been unearthed on the bank to the East. Each boiler and fittings cost about £15.

On the right, a variety of designs for garden chairs, wood and iron, rustic and plain, mostly cost less than £1.

This page of the catalogue shows some of the windows made by Guntons which Henry Trevor used on the ‘Gothic’ fountain (PGPT299) and lavishly around the garden e.g. on pedestals (cf PGPT356/7), the Window folly (PGPT096) and the Gothic alcove (PGPT214).

G.Colman Green, son of George Green, produced an album with photographs, newspaper cuttings and his own sketches to illustrate the life of his father. This sketch, signed and dated. is inscribed ‘entrance to the Plantation, Earlham Road, Norwich’, and a sentence added at the bottom saying ‘My father entertained many well-known people at this house including Lord Oxford (Mr Asquith) also many Ministers of Religion’.

This sketch was an attempt to reconstruct the ‘Gothic Alcove’ from the (very obscure) background on the left of PGPT027.