Pitmedden House

No external evidence of a castellated structure at Pitmedden House, a modern mansion still occupied. According to a painting in a building in Pitmedden Garden, the house was burned in 1818.

Visited by OS (RL) 6 April 1972

When King James VII met opposition among the Scottish law lords to his catholicism, one of the Lords of Session that he had removed from the bench was Alexander Seton, Lord Pitrnedden. Seton retired from public life to pursue a major project that he had begun in 1675, the creation of a formal or 'great' garden. A date-stone recording the garden's foundation (Fundat 2 May 1675) can still be seen in the garden wall, the initials standing for Sir Alexander Seton and his wife, Dame Margaret Lauder. In creating a large formal garden, 145m square, with two main sections on different levels, Seton was following a well-established English pattern.

Seton's garden consisted of an upper and lower enclosure, divided by a wall with pavilions to north and south. The lower garden contained four large rectangular borders or parterres, ornamented with box hedging, which were viewed from terraces to north and south, and elegant garden furniture such as fountain and sundial. The restoration of the garden since 1952 was designed by Dr J S Richardson and others and carried out by the Trust's head gardener (the Beechgrove gardener), George Barron.

Three of the parterres follow designs shown on Gordon of Rothiemay's 1647 view of the Palace of Holyroodhouse, while the fourth, in the south-west, contains the arms of Sir Alexander Seton. The legends Sustento Sanguine Signa (With blood I bear the standard) and Merces Haec Certa Laborum (This sure reward of our labours), the bleeding heart in the centre of the arms and the 17th century soldier on the pavilion weather vanes all refer to the death of Seton's father, John, fighting on the royalist side against the Covenanters at the Bridge of Dee in Aberdeen in 1639.

In the middle of the lower garden is a fountain containing seven stones from the cross fountain in Linlithgow and three from Pitmeddeni they were possibly all cut by Robert Mylne for the restoration of Charles II. The pavilions are two-storeyed garden shelters with ogee roofs very similar to one at Bruce's Kinross House. In the upper garden is a herb garden, for cookery, perfume and medicine, and another fountain, Sir Alexander's own.

Another feature of Pitmedden is the Museum of Farming Life, with farmhouse and ancilliary buildings containing an important collection of 19th and early 20th century farming implements. The dark, cold little Bothy gives a good impression of the living conditions of the hired help a generation or so ago. Across the road is an excellent example of an estate limekiln and quarry pit of the early 19th century.

Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Grampian’, (1986).

NJ 885 280 Comprehensive landscape survey and analysis was undertaken between January and December 2005 of the surviving core of the Pitmedden Estate, extending to selected areas sold to surrounding farms by the NTS in the 1950s.

The principal discovery was that the well-known formal walled garden of c 1675 at the core of the historic estate did not exist in isolation. The present Pitmedden House incorporates fragments of earlier structures, particularly to the N, and the uppermost garden terrace adjacent to the E side of the present house was probably the site of an earlier mansion that itself likely incorporated predecessor structures. The early complex was found from contemporary

accounts to have been burnt in 1807 (not 1818 as secondary sources have it). A drawing of the ruins in 1838 suggests a U-shaped courtyard open to the W ; this arrangement is now reversed.

On the N side of the house an existing court of offices was recognised to be of early date (late 17th or early 18th century); this includes a stable to the NW and a single-storeyed cottage to the NE, the latter subsequently given an additional storey. Between these two buildings was a flanking wall and gateway. A wall seems likely to have extended S from the SE corner of the cottage to close off the court, meeting the N side of the lost main house. It is possible

that the early cottage had been a gardener's house.

Outwith the main walled garden, the remains of a very extensive network of early drystone enclosure walls, laid out on a rectilinear grid with the walled garden at the centre, were identified and mapped (both by fieldwalking and map-regression exercises). These early walls, which were of exceptionally fine construction, were respected and often cut by all other features in the landscape ; quarries, turnpike roads, etc. On the basis of such evidence, the enclosure network was deduced to date close to the period of construction of the walled garden itself. The early walls form a

network of enclosures very suggestive of the formal laying-out of a small estate as described in contemporary treatises and following contemporary Continental practices.

Notably idiosyncratic details of the two early garden pavilions ; rusticated window surrounds and flat ogee lintels - were found, in common with similar details at the late 17th-century Hatton House terraced garden, to the W of Edinburgh. There can be little doubt that the same hand was involved in their construction.

The monumental E entrance of the walled garden seems not to be original to its present location. These may have been the gates at the W side of the original mansion court and are very similar to those shown in the 1830s drawing. The house was rebuilt in the 1850s and the gate piers relocated. The early estate appears to have evolved with additional plantings and other features in the 18th century and, in particular, the early 19th century. The latter was in large part in response to the layingout of turnpike roads that converged upon and cut through the Pitmedden Estate ; the modern B9000 (in 1805), B999 (in 1825) and the A920 (early 19th century). Many of the existing plantings, shelter-belts and drives appear to date from this time, as do most of the secondary estate buildings, farms and outlying field walls.

Sponsor: NTS.

T Addyman 2005.

NJ 8844 2805 In response to a proposal to build a new conservatory we undertook an excavation on 28-9 March 2007. The excavation sought to establish the footprint of a Victorian conservatory that had been formerly attached to the wall of the house and is documented in photographs. The foundations of the 19th-century conservatory were exposed and recorded.

Report deposited with NTS, Aberdeenshire SMR and RCAHMS.

Funder: National Trust for Scotland.

H K Murray and J C Murray, 2007.

NJ 8845 2806 A watching brief was conducted on 27 September 2011 during the construction of four new interpretation panels. The only significant find was made from a trench facing the Cottage, on the site of the 17th-century Court of Offices, where a Bronze Age flint thumb-nail scraper was recovered from the base of the pit at a depth of c0.6m.

Archive: RCAHMS (intended)

Funder: The National Trust for Scotland

The National Trust for Scotland, 2011

NJ 8844 2805 A watching brief was carried out on 27 November 2012 during the replacement of a sewer pipe. It was considered possible that the line of the trench might cut across foundations relating to the 17th-century wings that existed prior to the burning of the house in 1807. However, the ground had been disturbed by the earlier services and no foundations were observed.

Archive: RCAHMS (intended). Report: Aberdeenshire Council HER

Funder: The National Trust for Scotland

HK Murray, Murray Archaeological Services Ltd, 2013

(Source: DES)

NJ 88440 28050 A watching brief was undertaken, 13 January 2017, on a cable trench for a new fire alarm system. A dismantled wooden stair was revealed below floor boards in the cupboard at the N end of the corridor leading to the Wicken Room.

Archive and report: National Trust for Scotland

Funder: National Trust for Scotland

(Source: DES, Volume 18)