C H Whitehouse Brick Base Greenhouses

Brick bases and a glass roof

How do you picture a greenhouse for your garden? Does your ideal greenhouse have a low brick wall along the front, a glass front and huge glass roof with perhaps the high wall of the garden behind. This can be replicated in scale with your garden.

Greenhouses can be built onto low walls of brick or stone or even blocks. We design and manufacture Greenhouses of all shapes and sizes to fit onto new or existing brickwork. As we manufacture in Western Red Cedar machined in our own workshop we are not constrained by standard sizes. We work from a range of standard designs which we modify as required but we make even more special designs to meet each of our customer’s requirements. We specialise in unusual sites and welcome calls to discuss how best to fit a greenhouse into a garden or the need to create a special greenhouse for a particular collection of plants.
Inside the greenhouse different environments can be created by using partitions to divide the space into separate sections to provide for different growing conditions. The environment in one section can then be kept at a different temperature or humidity from the other to be able to grow a greater range of plants. This can also be more economical as it may only be necessary to heat one section.
The entry into the greenhouse was traditionally through the gable end in a small greenhouse or through a grand side entrance. In today’s smaller garden we can still create this side entrance and pictures on this page show some of the alternative arrangements for the entrance. Other pictures show some of the variations in design that we have used to make the greenhouse a practical feature in the garden.
Each Greenhouse is individually constructed in our own workshop from Western Red Cedar by one of our skilled craftsmen. On our page in the workshop you can see pictures of buildings at different stages of construction but you may also like to visit our workshop to smell the timber and see the greenhouses under construction.
All our Brick-Based Greenhouses are built to order and we are pleased to quote for the special variation that will meet your requirements. We can provide drawings to help you during the design process which can then become the working drawings for the workshop to make your greenhouse.
The useful space in a greenhouse can be increased by including Forcing Pits into the design (frames built on a brick base). They give additional covered areas that can be used in a variety of ways. If the wall between the Forcing Pit and the greenhouse includes a box ventilator then heat from the greenhouse can be borrowed to keep the frost out of the Forcing Pit.

A picturesque Lean-to

Brick Based Greenhouse with Forcing Pits

Lean-to on a garden wall

top tips…

Garden Frames A garden Frame adds flexibility to your protected growing space. At some times of year you may need to double you growing space for a short time. A Garden Frame gives this extra space.

Box Ventilators A little heat can increase the range of plants that you can grow. It is a feature that can be added later but plan for heating when installing the base.

Brick Base Styles
A Greenhouse designed for erection on brickwork constructed of Western Red Cedar. A very substantial Greenhouse able to be of great size using timber sizes and profiles similar to those used by the great Victorian greenhouse manufacturers.
The sills and the eaves rails are substantial and are bevelled to prevent water from lying. Glazing bars are strong but light and shaped to give the maximum light penetration. Removable slatted staging is available to fit along both sides and across the end of the house. 3 mm Horticultural glass is used as standard but other glazing materials can be used as appropriate. The finished greenhouse is supplied complete with all the necessary ironwork for erection, with brass door furniture as standard.

		Equal Span Brick-Base Greenhouses Freestanding Greenhouse where the two sides of the roof are the same and the door is in the gable end. Ventilation is provided in both the sides and in both sides of the roof. The roof and side ventilation is alternated to create a turbulent air flow. The amount of ventilation is calculated to be suitable for the size of greenhouse and the plants that it will house. Please call to discuss the needs of your plants in your garden.


		Unequal Span Brick-Base Greenhouses These greenhouses have roof slopes of different lengths. They may be Three-Quarters or Two-Thirds of the equivalent Span Greenhouses and are designed for situations where there is a high garden wall but where a Lean-to Greenhouse is not appropriate. The Greenhouse sits on the back wall, which needs to be free standing such as a garden wall. The two roof slopes are not the same length, the proportion depends on the greenhouse width and the height of the back wall. (Hence often listed as 2/3 Span or 3/4 Span to describe the roof proportions) The Unequal Span has several advantages over the Lean-To design. With two roof slopes ventilators can be fitted on both roof sides to give good air flow. It improves lighting providing even illumination which helps plants to grow vertically. The high back wall provides protection from the prevailing weather and a surface against which to grow plants. This design can butt up to a high wall but it will need a valley and this is a potential weak point in the design. Please call to discuss the best option for your garden. We can offer suggestions as to the best proportions and wall height for your site.



		Lean-to Brick-Base Greenhouses This Greenhouse is designed to lean against a high wall of the house or garden. The wall needs to have the strength to oppose the weight of the leaning greenhouse. A Lean To Greenhouse can be made to any height up the back but the steeper the pitch the better it will shed rainwater and the more efficient it is at collecting the winter sunlight. The greenhouse is constructed of Western Red Cedar and to get the best from the timbers strength the roof needs to have a steep pitch. We like to avoid a Lean To Greenhouse with too flat a pitch. Please call us to discuss the requirements in your garden. A Lean-To greenhouse only has one roof pitch for ventilation and needs more opening windows than a similar size Span roof or Unequal Span. Ventilation can be helped by building low level box ventilators.


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1 Brick-Base Greenhouse interior \| 2 Small Lean To built around piers \| 3 Detail of Box Ventilator built into brickwork \| 4 Lean To onto stone wall of house \| 5 Unequal Span as feature in garden

Sectional Brick Base Greenhouses
We can use the lighter framework construction of the Boarded base greenhouses to make lightweight greenhouses to go onto brickwork. Designed to fit onto brickwork 6ft wide or 7ft wide by 8ft long or 10ft long. We have a maximum size of 3.06mx 2.13m (10ft x7ft) to be able to support the weight of glass in these lighter timbers. (For larger structures we would use the heavier timbers specified for the Brick Base Greenhouses.)

Other Design Options
Traditionally the greenhouse was a simple ridge building with a door in one end. As gardens became more sophisticated the design changed to make the greenhouse more of a feature in the garden. One way this was achieved by making the entrance through a porch on the front. This is a feature we can add to your greenhouse. In some gardens due to space limitation or the layout of the garden it is necessary to enter the greenhouse through the front but a gable porch is not in keeping. To overcome this the recessed doorway gives access without losing growing space. A third alternative to provide an entrance into the greenhouse from the side is to raise the eaves height of the whole greenhouse. This also raises the ridge which has the advantage of more growing height but the disadvantage of a large space to heat in winter. On some sites we have needed to use combinations of these alternatives.
An alternative to the Lean To Greenhouse is to put the greenhouse end on to the wall. This has the advantage of allowing ventilation from the two sides of the roof, thus overcoming one of the disadvantages of the Lean To design. This approach looks best when the greenhouse follows the ridge line of other buildings.


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1 Two-Thirds Span Brick-Base Greenhouse with Extended Gable Porch and Forcing Pits. Note the decorative cresting available as an additional option \| 2 Unequal Span Brick-Base Greenhouse with Flush Gable Porch built on to a stepped wall. Sliding doors with no threshold for wheelchair access \| 3 Greenhouse end onto building \| 4 Equal Span Brick-Base Greenhouse with recessed side entry

Other problems and their solution
A sloping garden where the greenhouse has been set into the slope. This can be as easily done with the Sectional Brick base Greenhouses as with the large greenhouses.
A steep slope on the garden and a shortage of space can be solved by building on the roof of a garage or outbuilding. We have built a Lean-To to use the space on a garage roof with access from the house. The same space could be used by a sectional greenhouse or a Hexalight. In a steep sloping garden the greenhouse can be set into the slope.

top tips…

Ventilation Fit an autovent to one of your roof ventilators and stop worrying about whether you should open up the vents to cool the greenhouse. The Bayliss Autovent units do this for you as they open in response to increased temperature.

shading Plan the siting of the greenhouse to make use of natural shade from the west. You may find that when you have been using the greenhouse for a few years you need to add shading. This can be added to any of our greenhouses.