House visitors often remark on the fernery seen from the stone passage at the start of the tour. These include some fine specimens of tree fern, with smaller species potted and arranged about the interior courtyard.
Pterido is the Latin term for ferns, and pteridomania, or fern fever, refers to the Victorian all-consuming love affair with this plant species, one associated at the time with a potent mix of fairydom and feminine sexuality. The craze can be traced back to 1829, when British surgeon and explorer Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward invented the Wardian case – essentially an ornamental miniature glass house, to protect his ferns from the air pollution of the 19th century and preserve exotic varieties from the vagaries of the British climate.
His invention enabled botanist George Loddiges to build the world’s largest hothouse in east London, which included a fern nursery.
A National Obsession
To maximize visitor numbers to his hothouse, Loddiges started a rumour that fern collecting was elevating, improved virility and maintained mental health.
By the 1940s the pastime had become a national obsession, facilitated in part by the Victorians having just completed hundreds of miles of railway. It had never been quicker or more affordable to visit the corners of the country, remote and wild, that had never been explored before. This led to fern collecting becoming one of very few hobbies to transcend class and gender barriers, with house maids and miners as likely as aristocrats and landed gentry to be avid collectors.
Fern Hunting
However, it was the upper and middle classes who became the first wave of enthusiastic fern ‘hunters’, taking to the countryside with recently published guidebooks on the subject. And since the activity was deemed to be a wholesome pursuit for women also, as the craze reached fever pitch even the most discerning Victorian hostess abandoned her tea parties in favour of fern-hunting - daylong woodland expeditions with picnic lunches, often continuing late into the evening.
As the century progressed fern motifs appeared everywhere, in homes, gardens, art and literature. They adorned rugs, tea-sets, chamber pots, garden benches, and even custard cream biscuits. Live ferns hung over dining tables and Wardian cases filled with ferns were found in every house of means, while gardens and glass houses were given over to ferneries. The craze lasted some fifty years, it’s waning coinciding with the death of Queen Victoria and the dawning of a new century.
See Farringford's Gardens for more on Victorian plants and planting.