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Glass Gardens in Winterfell


TheSeer27

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Rereading Dance I found this very odd. How is it that Winterfell is able to have these? And why don't more houses in the North have one? Its obviously insanely valuable to have the ability to grow food in the middle of winter when crops are dead and food is scarce. And I can't imagine its only because the Starks are rich enough to own one. Is it just the placement of Winterfell that makes it possible? And how was it built in the first place, seems incredibly too complex for the current world of Westeros. I'm sure this has been discussed before so any links to theories is appreciated. :)

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According to an SSM, some of the great northern lords "try and maintain greenhouses", not only the Starks.

A quick search on the wikipedia revealed that "In the 13th century, greenhouses were built in Italy to house the exotic plants that explorers brought back from the tropics". They were not common, but they existed. Thus, if this technology could be applied in a useful way somewhere in Westeros, it would certainly be in Winterfell because, as Catelyn pointed out (talking about Winterfell's hot springs, but mentioning the glass gardens aswell), "in winter, it was the difference between life and death".

Obviously, the easiest answer is that this is a literary genre where anything goes.

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I think it's reasonable to assume that only the more important lords would have the resources to build a greenhouse/glasshouse in their castles.  It's not gonna be cheap to get the proper glass (didn't Jon say something about having to get the glass from Myr, if he was going to build one at the Wall?) and you'd need quite a few panels (at minimum 5/6 panels - four for the walls and one or two for the roof, depending on whether you want a flat roof or a peaked roof, and I've never seen a flat-roofed greenhouse....though that just might be convention rather than necessity).  The size of those panels would vary, depending on how you're planning on building it (a bunch of small panels would travel better, but would require far more work to put together - the larger the panels the harder it is to ship, increasing costs.  And then you add the likelihood that some will break in transit, so you'd need to order *more* than you really need just in case some of the panels are broken) so it would end up being VERY expensive - the glass itself being pretty pricey plus the shipping costs...glass^ ain't even cheap nowadays! It's gonna be really expensive when the creation of glass isn't automated like it is now...and don't even get me started on shipping costs nowadays!

So, given the fact that the glasshouses would probably have to be large enough for at least one person to enter and walk around in, along with the room required to grow things - well, it certainly would be immensely expensive.  I could see some major houses having a glasshouse, like White Harbour - maybe even the Dreadfort and Karhold*.  Without knowing off the top of my head whether the rest of the bigger houses have the resources, those three are my best guesses - and even then I'm assuming *Karhold/Karstarks would likely have gotten the idea from their kin and made sure to allocate resources towards a glasshouse.  I'm also assuming the Dreadfort/Bolton's would be roughly equal to the Starks in terms of resources and whatnot since they managed to hold out against the Kings of Winter for so long.  And I wouldn't be surprised at all if the nearness of the hot springs is what allows the glasshouses to work so well in Winterfell.

^At least, buying windows isn't fucking cheap!  Haven't actually tried to by just a pane of glass!

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It would be an extremely expensive thing to build because glass would be extremely costly to produce, so it makes sense to have the only known glass gardens in the regional capital.  Glass blowing in medieval Europe is linked to deforestation because it took so much wood to fuel the high temperature glass furnaces.  The glass gardens at Winterfell are also not just a greenhouse, they have hot water fed by the hot springs under Winterfell circulated through them as well. 

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30 minutes ago, Dorian Martell's son said:

The glass gardens in winterfell are the retcon to allow the lemon tree to exist and thrive in Braavos at the house with the red door. #lemongatesolved 

Pop! 

There goes another balloon ;)

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1 hour ago, Dorian Martell's son said:

The glass gardens in winterfell are the retcon to allow the lemon tree to exist and thrive in Braavos at the house with the red door. #lemongatesolved 

It's not much of a retcon.  The red door is first mentioned very early in GoT in Daenerys I and the glass gardens are first mentioned three chapters later in Catelyn II.

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14 minutes ago, White Ravens said:

It's not much of a retcon.  The red door is first mentioned very early in GoT in Daenerys I and the glass gardens are first mentioned three chapters later in Catelyn II.

I know, I was just taking the piss out of a bunch of lemongaters and the very wild and baseless theories they generate over a draft mistake by the author 

 

1 hour ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Pop! 

There goes another balloon ;)

B)

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Really clear glass was difficult to make. In our history, Venice maintained the secret of making optically clear glass in order to protect its monopoly on the market. Seems like Myr has a similar function in ASOIaF - that's where lenses, telescopes, etc. come from, undoubtedly at great cost. Are the Winterfell glass panes totally clear? Might they have some tinge of color, or cloudiness? We never find out. But less than optical-quality glass would certainly cost less.

(These days, various transparent to translucent plastics are preferred, because glass tends to block the UV. And plastic is cheaper. But complete clarity in a greenhouse is not necessary.)

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25 minutes ago, Allardyce said:

You could build the glass walls but you would still need a source of heat. 

The sun is the heat source for greenhouses. The glass traps the heat the sun makes but doesn't allow it to leave/dissipate. The hot springs most definitely make it easier, and even possible to further diversify the food grown, and would certainly help maintain the temperature through super-long storms. You'd be surprised how f**king sunny it can be and still be -50Celsius!

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3 hours ago, Jak Scaletongue said:

you'd need quite a few panels (at minimum 5/6 panels - four for the walls and one or two for the roof, depending on whether you want a flat roof or a peaked roof, and I've never seen a flat-roofed greenhouse

When Sansa and Petyr were building the snow castle at the Eyre I got the impression that only the roof of the greenhouse was made out of glass (althought she called the building "glass garden"). Petyr helped with the glass frame but she raised the walls.

 

  • Sansa VII, aSoS
"No. It was always warm, even when it snowed. Water from the hot springs is piped through the walls to warm them, and inside the glass gardens it was always like the hottest day of summer." She stood, towering over the great white castle. "I can't think how to do the glass roof over the gardens."
 
Littlefinger stroked his chin, where his beard had been before Lysa had asked him to shave it off. "The glass was locked in frames, no? Twigs are your answer. Peel them and cross them and use bark to tie them together into frames. I'll show you." He moved through the garden, gathering up twigs and sticks and shaking the snow from them. When he had enough, he stepped over both walls with a single long stride and squatted on his heels in the middle of the yard. Sansa came closer to watch what he was doing. His hands were deft and sure, and before long he had a crisscrossing latticework of twigs, very like the one that roofed the glass gardens of Winterfell. "We will need to imagine the glass, to be sure," he said when he gave it to her.
[...]

She raised the walls of the glass gardens while Littlefinger roofed them over, and when they were done with that he helped her extend the walls and build the guardshall. [...]
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1 hour ago, Ckram said:

only the roof of the greenhouse was made out of glass

Right! The glass gardens could likely be at ground level or not too high, in order to take the best advantage of the geothermal heat (I don't subscribe to the "buried dragon" theory). In winter, the snow would cover the walls all the way up. Glass on the sides would be wasted, and would cut back severely on insulation from the cold. Best to have the traditional stone walls, with a glass roof. Probably slanted at a very high angle to shed the snow (think A-frame construction, which was used in high snow areas here on regular Earth.) The slanted roof would, of course, face south.

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3 hours ago, Jak Scaletongue said:

You'd be surprised how f**king sunny it can be and still be -50Celsius!

What would happen if winters in the North are dark like in the polar circles (polar night)?

We know that the "Long Night" is how they call the longest winter ever but that doesn't mean that shorter winters are sunny.

1 hour ago, zandru said:

The glass gardens could likely be at ground level or not too high, in order to take the best advantage of the geothermal heat

It seems more likely. The closest description we have:

  • aDwD - The Prince of Winterfell

It was warmer in the godswood, strange to say. Beyond its confines, a hard white frost gripped Winterfell. The paths were treacherous with black ice, and hoarfrost sparkled in the moonlight on the broken panes of the Glass Gardens. Drifts of dirty snow had piled up against the walls, filling every nook and corner. Some were so high they hid the doors behind them. Under the snow lay grey ash and cinders, and here and there a blackened beam or a pile of bones adorned with scraps of skin and hair. Icicles long as lances hung from the battlements and fringed the towers like an old man's stiff white whiskers. But inside the godswood, the ground remained unfrozen, and steam rose off the hot pools, as warm as baby's breath.

However, It's not clear if he's looking up or down.

4 hours ago, zandru said:

Are the Winterfell glass panes totally clear? Might they have some tinge of color, or cloudiness? We never find out. But less than optical-quality glass would certainly cost less.

A guy on reddit said that "glass of any color would impact the growth of the plants, and if they still can grow, it would still affect their nutritional value". Is that so?

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Yeah, mostly a money thing. I always assumed the Starks had the largest glass gardens in the North, not the only ones. Even for a fantasy novel, it would sound too forced to give them that privilege. Problem is maintaining it, not just building it. Should be pretty useful for a maester with the medicine chain. Also a good sign of power. Behold: here be glass gardens.

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