Basic HTML Version
36
Historic Gardens 2010
BCD Special Report
The walled kitchen gardens comprised
three sections, all of which survive today
although their uses have changed. In the
1822 plan, the area was divided into the Ball
Green, containing the oldest fig house in
Scotland; Rhymers How or Haugh Garden,
growing mainly fruit – mulberries, peaches,
nectarines and grapes; and the Garden, used
as a shrubbery. A magnificent glasshouse
range was added to the kitchen garden layout
in the late 19th century but little remained
of the once spectacular structure at the time
of the trust’s acquisition of the site in 1984.
Vegetable and fruit growing continued until
World War II when there were eight gardeners,
three of whom worked in the glasshouses.
In the latter years of the 20th century the
garden’s fortunes declined and the areas
were grassed over for easy maintenance.
Careful consideration was given to
finding a sustainable use for the two-acre
walled garden that would complement the
property, improve the site’s horticultural focus
and enhance the visitor experience. With
its long tradition of fruit-growing it was felt
that the garden at Fyvie should be developed
in a way that would reflect its former glory.
After many months of careful research and
planning it was agreed that a garden of Scottish
fruits should be developed to demonstrate
both the conservation of rare, unusual and
modern Scottish fruits and the craft skills
involved in their cultivation and maintenance.
Through the generous financial support of
the Garfield Weston Foundation and the
trust’s Great Gardens Appeal, the walled
garden development began to take shape.
A design for the garden was developed
that took into account the soils, the local
microclimate, the physical limitations of
the site and the agreed philosophy for
the garden: to grow as wide a variety of
traditional and modern Scottish soft and
top fruits as possible displayed in a variety
of styles and complemented by a selection
of seasonally varied vegetables. The design
for the new garden was not influenced by
historical records, quite the contrary: the
former layout of the northern section of
the triple walled garden was unremarkable
and untypical of other gardens of its period.
Instead a new dynamic design was created,
influenced by the design motifs of the plaster
ceilings in the castle’s entrance hall and Lord
Leith’s drawing room, which overlooks (at a
distance) the walled garden. The geometric
designs were created on the ground using
6,500 granite ‘cassies’, or cobbles, which
form a series of beds. Interconnecting
paths link the east and west sides of the
garden with a central herb parterre.
The fruit plots accommodate a diverse
selection of well-trained Scottish raspberries,
blackcurrants, gooseberries, redcurrants and
white-currants and various hybrid berries.
These are complemented by the most
complete collection of Scottish apple trees in
Scotland including varieties such as ‘Bloody
Ploughman’, ‘Cardross Green’, ‘East Lothian
Pippin’, ‘Maggie Sinclair’ and ‘Threave Castle’,
grown on a variety of rootstocks and pruned
in a number of different ways. A small nut-
wood, fan- and espalier-trained plum trees and
cordon- and espalier-trained Scottish pears,
including ‘Chalk’ and ‘Green Pear of Yair’, are
grown against the south and west facing walls.
In addition to maintaining the top-fruit
collection, the garden also supports a varied
selection of Scottish-developed vegetables
and includes some of the dozens of varieties
of potatoes that have been developed over
the past 100 years. These include ‘Duke of
York’, bred by William Sim of Fyvie in 1891,
a popular early potato with superb flavour
and texture, together with selections from the
Arran, Pentland and Dunbar potato groups as
well as some of the more modern varieties such
as ‘Brodick’ and ‘Brodie’ that were developed
during the 1990s. Other vegetables include
‘Balmoral’ and ‘Castlegrant’ cauliflowers,
‘Pentland Brig’ kale, ‘Musselburgh’ leeks,
‘Ailsa Craig’ onions and ‘Angus’ swede.
Today, the significance of Fyvie Castle’s
garden lies in its plant collection and in the
conservation of the heritage skill-set required
to maintain such an important fruit collection.
The systematic study and evaluation
of historic gardens has evolved a great deal
over the past 60 years. The approach taken
by the trust during this time has included
well-intentioned but sometimes misguided
actions. These are offset by many examples
of best conservation practice guided
by NTS’s own conservation principles
and those of international conservation
charters. In this underlying philosophy
the trust’s success is planted: it invigorates
all of our efforts to understand, interpret
and value the significance of Scotland’s
garden heritage and our determination
to ensure that it is accessible to all.
Recommended Reading
RW Billings,
The Baronial and
Ecclesiastical Antiquities of Scotland
,
Blackwood, Edinburgh, 1852
R Hurd,
Scotland Under Trust
, Adam and
Charles Black, London, 1939
S Landsberg,
The Medieval Garden
British
Museum Press, London, 1995
D MacGibbon and T Ross,
The Castellated
and Domestic Architecture of Scotland
,
David Douglas, Edinburgh, 1887
AH Millar,
Fife: Pictorial & Historical
,
A Westwood & Son, Cupar, Fife, 1895
J Morgan and A Richards,
The Book of
Apples
, Ebury Press, London, 1993
HG Slade, ‘Fyvie Castle, Aberdeenshire,
Scotland’,
Château Gaillard: Études de
Castellologie Médiévale
, vol 12, 1985
AMW Stirling,
Fyvie Castle: Its Lairds and Their
Times
, John Murray, London, 1928
Land Use Consultants,
Inventory of Gardens and
Designed Landscapes in Scotland
, Countryside
Commission for Scotland, Edinburgh, 1987
Robert Grant
DipHort Edinburgh is the
National Trust for Scotland’s head of gardens
and designed landscapes. He is responsible
for the strategic and policy direction of
the trust’s 70 garden sites and designed
landscapes and has worked for the trust for
23 years as a gardens adviser and instructor
gardener. Email
Fyvie Castle Garden of Scottish Fruits site interpretation
The drawing room ceiling at Fyvie Castle was the
inspiration for the design of the central parterre in the
Garden of Scottish Fruits.
The Garden of Scottish Fruits in summer 2009