NTS Recording Event

Date May 1996 - May 1996

Event ID 976410

Category Recording

Type Field Visit

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/976410

B005 Walled Garden (Listed Cat. A) and Bothies, Toilets, Glasshouse.

The Walled Garden is contained by a wall of red brick with a stone flag cope and measures 83m x 50m. The wall is generally approx. 3.6m high but with higher sections in the centre of the north and south walls. The high section in the inside of north wall is of granite reflecting the material used for the bothies on the outside of the wall. The whole external north wall is granite faced. Doorways are present in each wall, of which the north and south are used for public access. The east door gives access to a potting shed on the outside of the wall. The west wall has two doors, the lower of which is closed and the upper used for public access and maintenance.

The Walled Garden on this site dates from the end-18th century improvements and implements Thomas White's proposal for a new Walled Garden in this location to replace the walled enclosures to the east and south of the Castle shown in the 1788 House farm plan. The 1816 Home Farm plan and the 1st and 2nd Edition OS maps show:

• cross paths dividing the garden into quarters with a pump as central feature;

• a perimeter path;

• an external path creating borders between it and the wall;

• small glasshouses on the south sides of both the north wall and south wall, with buildings on the outside of the north wall.

The Home Farm plan shows the central quarters well stocked with small trees and annotates the general area as Kitchen Garden, Orchard and Shrubberies. Trees on this plan are very stylised and similar throughout the estate but an enclosure with small trees and shrubs is shown on the outside of the Walled Garden on the east side. To the north a 1.261 acre nursery is shown, south of the present car park.

The present layout of the Walled Garden dates from about 1977-78 and is to a design by Eric Robson, former NTS Head of Gardens. A west part, devoted to vegetables, and an east part, of lawn and mixed borders, are separated from the central square of the garden by purple beech hedges. An avenue of small trees, six in each row, aligns on the axis of the garden with mixed beds between the trees and hedge. A pump has been installed as the central feature in keeping with the earlier OS maps. One small glasshouse remains on the north wall with the bothy building on the outside of the wall. This is part 2-storey, part 1-storey, in rough squared granite blocks with some snecking: in use as public toilets and a gardener's room.

The border to the south of the Walled Garden is also mixed shrubs and herbaceous plants. During the Smileys’ time, c.1959, this was planted to a design by James Russell of Sunningdale Nurseries using shrubs and strong-growing herbaceous plants, with some old-fashioned roses and room for a few lilies (see plan extract). By 1978 few of the original plants survived and the border was narrowed and replanted, again to plans by Eric Robson.

(CAF96 B005) Information from (BNM) March 2014