KING OF THE CASTLES
The Italianinspired gardens at Drummond Castle in Perthshire are among the finest in Scotland
Standing on the terrace overlooking the garden at Drummond Castle you have to pinch yourself to remember that you are in Scotland, not one of the great French or Italian Renaissance gardens. At the foot of the slope, reached by a magnificent, double stone staircase, lies a symmetrical, classical parterre of box edged beds punctuated with marble statues, topiary shapes and ornamental trees with varied, coloured foliage.
The only hint that you are in Scotland, or Perthshire to be precise, comes from the informal backdrop of undulating parkland rising up towards the Ochil Hills and from the gradual realisation that the parterre’s strong horizontal and vertical lines are laid out in the form of St Andrew’s Cross. When asked to describe the most common reaction of visitors to this spectacular sight, head gardener Edith Barnes, who has spent her entire career at Drummond, says ‘it’s the “wow” factor’. Visitors, she continues, when standing on the top terrace with the castle towering above them, are ‘simply overwhelmed’ by the feast of textures, topiary shapes and blocks of colour enclosed by box edged beds at the foot of the hill. ‘It’s such a hidden
“Pinch yourself to remember that you are in Scotland, not a great Italian Renaissance garden
gem, and such a surprise on your first view from the top terrace.’ she says
Drummond Castle is reached along an ancient beech avenue and entered via a stone keep onto a cobbled courtyard. Now owned by the Grimsthorpe and Drummond Castle Trust, which was set up by the Earl of Ancaster, a direct descendent of the Drummond family who have been the titular holders of this land since the 16th century, the original castle was built by John, 1st Lord Drummond. There have been later additions.
The gardens were laid out in about 1630 by John Drummond, 2nd Earl of Perth, who drew inspiration from his own French garden. The 4th Earl, James, landscaped the surrounding parkland in the late 1600s, but the gardens fell into neglect when he followed James II into exile having failed in an early attempt to escape over the Ochils.
The present layout dates from 1830 when the heiress Clementina Drummond commissioned Lewis Kennedy (1789– 1877), the formal landscape designer who numbered the Empress Josephine at Malmaison near Paris as one of his clients, to restore the garden. Twelve years later the French layout struck a chord with Queen Victoria, who when staying at Drummond as guests of Clementina and her husband, Lord Willoughby de Eresby, noted in her diary:
“At the heart of the garden is a magnificent St Andrew’s Cross
‘Sunday … we walked in the garden, which is really very fine, with terraces, like an old French garden.’
At the heart of the garden a central path, bordered by an avenue of yew cones, leads to the heart of the garden, a magnificent stone obelisk sundial at the centre of the remarkable St Andrew’s Cross. Commissioned by the 2nd Earl, who had a great interest in mathematics, the complex structure with 68 facets and 85 shadow gnomons measures time in 131 different ways and at different times of the year. There are special shadows for the summer and winter equinoxes. This remarkable structure was recently restored by Edinburghbased sculptor Graciela Ainsworth.
The French influence is evident in the elegant box beds in geometric or fan shapes punctuated with precisely clipped balls, umbrellas and cones of yew and highlights of carved stone statues and obelisks. Height comes from the deciduous trees noted for their yellow, gold and claret-coloured autumn foliage, including the Tulip tree, Cercidiphyllum japonicum and Acers, which strike an informal note and cleverly link the scheme to the surrounding parkland. The red foliage of Acer palmatum ‘Osakazuki’ is a special favourite of Edith’s as ‘it has a lot of colour at every stage’, while she also adores A. griseum for its red and orange autumn foliage and dark brown, peeling winter bark.
Colour is particularly important in the contemporary design and the garden is filled with the bright, joyous colour of a rotating palate of annuals, including Antirrhinum, nicotiana and clouds of Gypsophila. The glory of summer lies in the pink, red and yellow roses, all of which are repeat flowering. Bright red Rosa Evelyn Fison, yellow Toprose and pink Free Spirit in the parterre with ‘Ice Berg’ around the fountains.
For Edith, who also represents Scotland in clay pigeon shooting, at which she is a Commonwealth Games bronze medallist, mornings start in the glasshouses just below the garden. Here, young plants are nurtured and vegetables and soft fruit are raised for the house. The head gardener since 2014, she is assisted by 11 full-time and part-time gardeners, and relishes the challenges presented each day.
There could be no more thrilling place to work, she says. ‘The garden absorbs visitors, it never feels crowded no matter how many people are here.’