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Publication Account
Date 1985
Event ID 1016549
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1016549
The King's Knot forms the most prominent part of an elaborate landscaped garden laid out in 1628-9 as a part of a programme of alterations carried out at Stirling Castle for Charles I. It is situated at the foot of Castle Rock and lies in the north-east corner of The King's Park which, since the end of the 12th century, had been enclosed as a royal hunting park.
The gardens consisted of an orchard, a large rectangular parterre (an area of garden laid out with formal flower beds) and, attached to the south-east side of the latter, a double-ditched enclosure containing an octagonal mound known as The Knot. Formal gardens of this type were fashionable in the 17th century and their layouts were influenced by English Elizabethan and Jacobean designs. The parterre and knot enclosures are both rectangular and both are divided into four major quadrants with central features. In the case of the parterre, the rectangle is again subdivided into four quadrants with a circular central bed. Thus the design of the two sections of the fonnal garden complement one another and, doubtless, their relationship would have been enhanced by the lay-out of their respective flower-beds. Of the latter no trace survives, but we can be fairly certain that the plantings would have consisted of geometric designs, possibly combined with beds in the fonn of monograms or lettering, and that much use would have been made of topiary and low box hedges to edge borders or to fonn patterns on their own. An idea of how such a garden would have appeared can be gained by visiting the replanted garden at Pitmedden Castle, Aberdeenshire (NTS).
Despite all the effort to construct the gardens, they were not maintained for long and by the beginning of the 18th century they had fallen into isuse, in part due to the Crown's failure to use Stirling Castle as a major residence. A 'thorough restoration and renewal' was accomplished in 1867; unfortunately this involved much alteration to the gardens, including remodelling The Knot and possibly realigning The Knot enclosure.
Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: The Clyde Estuary and Central Region’, (1985).
