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Drumlanrig Castle’s gardens have provided three centuries of pleasure
‘The garden that surrounds the castle is
famous in its own right, being praised by Daniel Defoe as long ago as 1720’
In his book Drumlanrig: The Castle, Its
People and Its Paintings, Richard, Duke of Buccleuch, describes Drumlanrig as a place that stirs ‘powerful feelings of contentment’ in him and his family. One look at the gardens and policies that surround this magnificent building in Dumfriesshire’s Nith valley and it’s easy to see why.
The elegant 17th-century castle, topped with turrets and domes, sits on a raised terrace at the end of a drive that winds through mature parkland. It owes its nickname of the ‘Pink Palace’ to the warm pink sandstone of the exterior, and it has been home to the dukes of Buccleuch and Queensberry for three centuries
The garden that surrounds it is famous in its own right, its layout being praised by Daniel Defoe as long ago as 1720. But it is believed to have a history that stretches back much further – there was said to be a series of Renaissance hanging gardens here inspired by planthunting expeditions to America and Barbados. Later neglected by Old Q, the 4th Duke of Queensberry, who left his inheritance in a state of disrepair on his death in 1810, the garden was later restored in a rich Victorian style with glasshouses containing exotic fruit trees and bedding plants.
For the past 26 years the head gardener at Drumlanrig has been Robbie Black, who manages the garden with input from the duke. As he shows me around, he strides through the courtyard west of the castle and into the private garden planted by Jane, Duchess of Buccleuch,
in the 1970s with white and blue Hydrangea paniculata. The reason for his speed is obvious: this immensely varied garden covers forty acres and is tended by only four full-time gardeners. The terrace overlooking the west parterre is planted with roses and catmint and punctuated with yew columns topped with domes that echo those on the castle roof.
In the south parterre, earlier plantings of heathers have been replaced with a contemporary scheme of perennials cut back in winter to allow the box outline to stand out.
The long terrace has a herbaceous border, which is home to the white May-flowering Xanthoceras sorbifolium and the tree anemone Carpenteria californica. Beyond a line of alternating green and copper fastigiate beech, Fagus sylvatica Dawyck’, stands Britain’s tallest weeping beech.
Next is the east terrace, where the parterre of tall, elegant topiary yew, conifer and box was designed by Duchess Jane in 1978 to a simplified version of an original engraving found in the castle. The terrace was dug up to grow potatoes during the Second World War and later grassed over, presenting an ideal opportunity for restoration.
Steep diagonal paths lead to the lower level of the garden and to the woodland. There are surprises here, such as the red oak planted by the astronaut Neil Armstrong (he stayed at
‘There are surprises here, such as the red oak planted by Neil Armstrong’
‘The parterre takes its design from an original engraving found in the castle’
Drumlanrig on a visit to Scotland in 1971), a small cemetery for the family’s pets and a Douglas fir raised from a seed sent back from North America by plant hunter David Douglas in 1829.
The woodlands, Robbie explains, were very overgrown 18 years ago and have been gradually restored, their paths uncovered thanks to some Victorian maps. The undergrowth has been cleared and new plantings include species rhododendron and 30 different varieties of acer.
The Heather House is the focal point of the newly laid-out winter garden, planted for colour of bark, stem, foliage and fragrance and even winter flowers. These include purple-stemmed
Cornus alba ‘ Kesselringii’, red-stemmed C alba ‘ Elegantissima’ and white-stemmed Rubus cockburnianus. For fragrance there is Lonicera fragrantissima, sarcococca and pink-flowering Viburnum x bodnantense.
The snake-bark maple Acer capillipes stands out, as does white-barked Betula utilis ‘Jacquemontii’, yellow-stemmed Cornus stolonifera ‘ Flaviramea’, and yellow and orange-flowered hamamelis, or witch hazel. Different mahonia shrubs such as Mahonia aquifolium ‘Atropurpurea’ and Mahonia x media ‘Charity’ provide structure and fragrance, while the red foliage of leucothoe adds a splash of autumn colour.
It all comes together to create a vibrant winter garden that is always changing.