JEWEL OF THE TWEED
Mertoun House, the ancestral home of the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, boasts one of the Borders’ most jaw-dropping gardens, finds
The gardens at Mertoun House, the ancestral home of the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, are a joy to behold
The entire 26-acre garden is managed to enhance wildlife habitat and attract different birds
Twelve years ago, when Rupert Norris applied for the job of head gardener at Mertoun House, he happily admits he was ‘bowled over by the two-acre walled garden’. In the upper garden a structural layout of ancient, pruned apple trees punctuated the box edged paths which divide crop rotating beds. In the steeper, lower garden, the orchard was reputed to be awash with bulbs and blossom in spring.
At the heart of the space stood the Gardener’s Cottage. Known as Old Mertoun House, this pink harled 17th-century house was built around the core of an older tower with crowstepped gables at either end. It was unique and Rupert was ‘absolutely spellbound’.
He was equally impressed by the quality and variety of the produce in this twelve-month garden, which enjoys just a brief period of mid-winter quiet. Apples, pears and plums were espaliered along the walls and there were lower cordons of redcurrants. The cutting garden was filled with delphiniums, allium and gladioli, with butterflies and bees hovering over them.
Later there will be bright pink nerines and sedum, while rows of lettuces, dark red cabbages, peas and beans also thrive. The entire 26-acre garden was managed to enhance wildlife habitats and especially designed to attract different birds, including tits, robins and blackbirds, who are attracted to the vegetables.
Mertoun, the ancestral home of the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, sits in a raised position overlooking the River Tweed east of St Boswells. The Duke and Duchess, who live in Mertoun House, the early 18th-century Georgian mansion designed by Sir William Bruce for Sir William Scott of Harden, take a keen interest in the gardens. Besides the walled garden, this extends to a semi-formal herbaceous and pond garden designed to be seen from the first floor of the house. There is also an arboretum richly planted with specimen trees. Laid out in the late 18th or early 19th century and threaded with grass paths the arboretum links the house to the walled garden.
‘I was taken aback by the scale of the garden and the achievement of the small gardening team of Fred Breed
and his son Alfred, who between them had accumulated 84 years of service,’ said Rupert.
Both father and son had achieved great horticultural feats during their life at Mertoun. In the 1940s Fred bred the famous Kelso Show onion, later sold to Mr Fothergill’s Seeds and now raised commercially. Alfred won a world record for growing the tallest gladioli and an RHS award for services to horticulture.
But Rupert, who grew up in Shetland and was always in his parents’ garden, is no stranger to a challenge. ‘The Shetland climate must be among the toughest in the UK when it comes to gardening,’ he says, ‘and my parents’ house and garden were perched on top of a hill and exposed to 360 degrees, with little protection from the salt laden winds.’
Rupert spent every spare minute in the garden despite admitting to having ‘no idea’ if anything he was doing would work.
Leaving Shetland he trained at SAC Auchincruive, where he met his Dutch-born wife Wilma. Together with their two sons, 12-year-old Sam and five-year-old Oscar, they live in Old Mertoun House. Early on he found it hard not to look out of the windows and think incessantly about the garden.
‘But now, years later, with my family growing up around me I’ve learnt not to be so anxious about the garden looking back at me and I’ve learnt to appreciate it.’
Rupert subscribes to the Sutherland family vision of using the garden to promote horticultural skills and a love of the environment. ‘To me it’s important to try and preserve those skills and, where possible, pass them on,’ he says.
He is especially passionate about welcoming people into the garden, ‘whether it’s for an arranged tour of garden enthusiasts or for a group of schoolchildren learning where their fruit and vegetables come from and how they
In the 1940s Fred bred the famous Kelso Show onion, later sold and now raised commercially
are grown’. Horticultural students learning new skills in a real working environment are also welcome, while he also hosts regular school visits that have been arranged by RHET, the Royal Highland Education Trust.
Gardeners always face challenges from weather, pests, diseases and invasive weeds, and Mertoun is no exception. Recently a soil analysis revealed that, following years of adding farmyard manure and organic matter, the soil in the walled garden was producing excessively high levels of potassium and phosphorus. ‘It’s a problem that I am sure most gardeners would happily suffer,’ says Rupert. ‘The good news is we won’t have to dig in any organic matter for the next few years until levels become acceptable.’
At Mertoun he is excited about growing unusual plants ‘although, unlike in Shetland, here I have the luxury of heated greenhouses’.
The new ivory cream framed glasshouse with matching bricks promises to be a major feature of the garden. Argyranthemum daisies, used in the house, flowered year round, and the tomatoes ripened a few weeks earlier even when temperatures were low. The vinery is due to be re-glazed this spring with a clear poly-carbonate which Rupert feels will boost the peach and fig trees.
With vegetable growing delegated to assistant gardener Jimmy Morton, Rupert is free to focus on the ornamental plantings throughout the gardens. ‘Now I have full-time, part-time and seasonal staff, plus students and volunteers, to help me,’ he says.
‘That means that fortunately this garden was less of a challenge than I first thought. With such a great team behind me the job is a pleasure, which is why the garden is what it is today.’