My Favourite Place: Cambo Gardens, Fife

I first went to Cambo in about 2007 – I was invited to give a lecture at a snowdrop day, but I didn’t know the place at all. I arrived in the pitch black, you couldn’t see anything, and the next morning was a typical murky, misty, dull February day, so I went out for a walk.

I was told that if I followed my nose I would eventually come to the sea. So, I walked down the path through the woods and it was absolutely magical. Under the gnarled, old trees the ground was carpeted with snowdrops and there was a babbling brook. I was transported back into a Snow White, fairy-tale landscape.

It must have been about half a mile through acres and acres of snowdrops, and then suddenly the world ends. There are a few huge rocks and you’re on a sandy beach and can see for miles. It was wonderful, it truly took my breath away.

Lady Catherine Erskine has created a National Collection of snowdrops at Cambo. There aren't many places where you have a wild snowdrop garden and a really good formal collection as well. It’s orderly and nicely labelled, and you can see all the different forms in close-up. Galanthus ‘Grumpy’ sticks in my mind from that visit. It was the first time that I’d seen it, and I do like my snowdrops to be distinctive.

The snowdrop woods have been there for a huge amount of time. One of the things I find really exciting is they still have the invoice for the first double snowdrops, bought in 1801. And it recently emerged that the great Victorian galanthophile, David Melville, worked there as a journeyman gardener early in his career, and so he must have had an influence.

I really like the whole atmosphere of the garden. When you walk in, it wraps its arms around you and says ‘I love you’, and you can feel the love of generations of gardeners. I’ve never been there in good weather, and maybe the ghosts of the past don’t come out on sunny days, but you can really feel the magic coming out of it.

■ Cambo Gardens & The Stables Visitor Centre, Cambo Estate, Kingsbarns, St Andrews, Fife KY16 8QD; www.cambogardens.org.uk.

Garden historian and co-author of The Galanthophiles (Orphans Publishing), Jennifer Harmer loves to escape to the pristine snowdrop woods at Cambo Gardens in Scotland.