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Pitmedden House, Great Garden
Fountain (Period Unassigned), Garden (Period Unassigned), Sundial(S) (Period Unassigned)
Site Name Pitmedden House, Great Garden
Classification Fountain (Period Unassigned), Garden (Period Unassigned), Sundial(S) (Period Unassigned)
Alternative Name(s) Pitmedden House Policies; Great Garden Of Pitmedden
Canmore ID 85169
Site Number NJ82NE 33.01
NGR NJ 88547 28039
NGR Description Centred on NJ 88547 28039
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/85169
- Council Aberdeenshire
- Parish Udny
- Former Region Grampian
- Former District Gordon
- Former County Aberdeenshire
Garden, 1675, Sir Alexander Seton; recreated since National Trust for Scotland acquisition in 1952 to designs of Dr J S Richardson, executed by George Barron: the greatest Renaissance example to survive in Scotland, consists of a
massive rectangular enclosure, 190 yards by 160 yards, divided into an upper and a lower garden. There are fountains in both parts. The upper area contains Sir Alexander's fountain and the lower one created from fragments of Robert
Mylne's Linlithgow Cross fountain (designed to commemorate the restoration of Charles II) as well as some stones from Pitmedden. Entrance to the lower, eastern garden is through a gateway with pineapple-topped piers and down a double stair with rustic decoration (including font recess). There are two very grand twin ogee-roofed pavilions with quoins at angles and groin vaults to ground floors; the upper room in the north one has panelling of 1686. Terraces to north and south permitted viewing of the parterres or borders planted out with formal patterns and heraldry. The sundial, c.1675, in
the centre has an octagonal facet-head and ball finial; it originally stood to the north-west of the house.
Great Garden created by Sir Alexander Seton, Lord Pitmedden, one of the Court of Session judges removed by James VII for opposing his growing catholicism. His initials, and those of his wife, Dame Margaret Lauder, appear in the foundation inscription ('Fundat 2 May 1675'), while the bleeding heart in the family coat of arms and the melancholy Latin inscriptions picked out in low hedges in the garden are references to the death of Seton's father, Bonnie John Seton, fighting on the royalist side, at the battle of the Bridge of Dee in Aberdeen in 1639.
Taken from "Aberdeenshire: Donside and Strathbogie - An Illustrated Architectural Guide", by Ian Shepherd, 2006. Published by the Rutland Press http://www.rias.org.uk
NJ82NE 33.01 88547 82039
Historical sources suggest an upper pair of parterres between the present lower formal garden and Pitmedden House. This evaluation attempted to locate these features in advance of new planting, but neither of the main trenches contained any direct evidence of previous parterres.
Sponsor: NTS.
NTS 1993d.
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.
NMRS REFERENCE:
NMRS Printroom
W Schomberg Scott Photograph Collection Acc no 1997/39
3 general views of garden gates
4 details of the same gates
Excavation (26 July 1993 - 27 July 1993)
Two trial trenches were excavated in the area of the supposed parterres of the 17th century Great Garden at Pitmedden. Neither trench located definite evidence of the existence of former parterres, although this possibility cannot be discounted at this stage. A third trench showed that the south parterre area was more likely to provide positive evidence in future investigations.
Information from NTS (SCS) March 2014
Publication Account (1996)
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 Pitmedden. 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 recotding 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 des igned by Dr J S Richa rdson and others and carried our 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 Holyrood house, while the fourth, in the southwest, 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 sold ier 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 Pitmedden; they were possibly all cur by Robert Mylne for the restoration of Charles Il. 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 two generations 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: Aberdeen and North-East Scotland’, (1996).
Nts Note (3 July 2009)
While working in the Lion Parterre, Pitmedden gardeners exposed two capstones of a substantially-built stone culvert. The soil above and around the capstones contained many flecks of degraded lime mortar. The direction of the culvert aligns with a culvert that is evident at the base of the east wall of the walled garden (HLS ref B03/1102), on its eastern side, where a capstone has been shifted aside and replaced with a cement slab, allowing access to modern piping inserted within the culvert. It is clear that this culvert is a substantial structure which presumably dates to the period of the establishment of the walled garden in the 1670s, as it runs underneath the garden wall.
The line of the culvert would appear from the HLS to be on the same alignment as the culvert exiting into water outflow W19/2229, and it is likely that this all forms part of the same feature. It is quite possible that this forms part of the original water system which fed the fountains in the walled garden.
Information from NTS (SCS) March 2014
Project (11 January 2016 - 17 January 2016)
NJ 88547 28039 A geophysical survey was undertaken, 11–17 January 2016, at Pitmedden Garden as part of a wider archaeological evaluation of the site. The aim of the survey was to attempt to map the original principal
range of Pitmedden House, other related structures, including culverts, and earlier garden features. Resistance survey was undertaken over all available lawn areas of the walled garden, a total area of 1.35ha. Two areas of ground penetrating radar were carried out based on the resistance survey results; an area immediately to the E and S of Pitmedden House and an area towards the centre of the upper garden.
Parts the site had been used as a market garden, and established overgrown vegetation had preceded the remodelling of the garden in the 1950s. However, despite the level of disturbance across the site, the geophysical survey managed to detect numerous anomalies of possible
archaeological interest.
A series of linear anomalies suggestive of a possible network of paths, and possibly other garden features, arranged systemically around the central axis of the garden has been detected in the centre of the upper
garden. Although the full extent of these features is not clear, this is partly due to the limited areas available for survey due to existing parterres, hedges and trees. Indeed, the modern parterres appear to match the archaeological ones remarkably well. Well-defined anomalies were
detected in the SW of the upper garden which coincide with parch marks. There is some evidence in the data that this may indicate a possible structure and associated paths. However, the geophysical survey has failed to detect anomalies consistent with an earlier principal range of Pitmedden House. Although available areas for survey were extremely limited in the lower garden due to the large extant parterres, the survey has confirmed the line of a culvert in the N of the area.
Archive: Rose Geophysical Consultants
Funder: The National Trust for Scotland
Susan Ovenden – Rose Geophysical Consultants
(Source: DES)
Ground Penetrating Radar (11 January 2016 - 17 January 2016)
NJ 88547 28039 Ground penetrating radar survey.
Archive: Rose Geophysical Consultants
Funder: The National Trust for Scotland
Susan Ovenden – Rose Geophysical Consultants
(Source: DES)
Resistivity (11 January 2016 - 17 January 2016)
NJ 88547 28039 Resistivity survey.
Archive: Rose Geophysical Consultants
Funder: The National Trust for Scotland
Susan Ovenden – Rose Geophysical Consultants
(Source: DES)
