Dreaming spires of delphiniums
The restoration and regeneration of the garden at Dumfries House in East Ayrshire, which The Prince of Wales– The Duke of Rothesay in Scotland–helped to save for the nation more than 10 years ago, is nothing short of spectacular, finds Alan Titchmarsh
After a dramatic, 11th-hour rescue, Dumfries House is thriving. Alan Titchmarsh explores the spectacular gardens, a tribute to the vision of The Prince and the passion of local volunteers
The joie de vivre of the volunteers and professionals is matched by their pride in what has been achieved
The dramatic story of how Dumfries house and its contents were saved for the nation thanks to the intervention of hrh The Prince of Wales—who is known as The Duke of Rothesay in Scotland—has passed into folklore. how, on the eve of the sale, the removal lorries were turned back, having begun their journey down the motorway to Christie’s in London, to return their precious cargo of furniture—much of it the work of Thomas Chippendale—to the house for which it was intended.
The Prince headed a consortium that managed to raise the £45 million necessary (£20 million came from The Prince’s own Charitable Trust) to administer the property under the umbrella of The Great Steward of Scotland’s Dumfries house Trust.
Since that day in the late spring of 2007, Dumfries house and its contents have become a magnet for those keen to see the sensitive and often spectacular restoration and regeneration of the John and Robert Adam Palladian country house in east Ayrshire, which was once the home of the earls of Dumfries and later the Marquesses of Bute.
The house sits proud now, its furniture positively glows and many of the buildings on the 2,000-acre estate have been put to practical use, such as providing a Scottish home for the Royal Drawing School and luxurious bed-and-breakfast accommodation for visitors. As a consequence, the entire project has brought valuable income —and employment—to an area previously lacking any significant tourist trade.
however, it’s not only the house and its outbuildings that have benefited from The Prince’s intervention. The surrounding landscape has been transformed over the past 10 years—there’s now an extensive young arboretum and a spectacular Chinese bridge crossing the Lugar Water. however, it is The Queen elizabeth Walled Garden—officially opened by her Majesty in June 2014—that is perhaps the greatest achievement.
When I toured the then derelict five-acre walled garden in 2011, it was a wilderness
When I toured the house and the then derelict five-acre walled garden with The Prince of Wales in 2011, it was nothing more than an overgrown wilderness sloping fiercely to the south with an overall drop of some 40ft from top to bottom.
The Prince explained his vision for this area of devastation and how local volunteers —many of them present that day—would be involved in transforming this piece of Scottish landscape into a walled garden that would have a rose garden, a kitchen garden, a glasshouse complex arranged along the topmost wall and become, once again, a vibrant and productive place.
I have come to understand that when The Prince gets the bit between his teeth, it’s likely his ambitions will be realised. What I hadn’t accounted for was the speed with which that ambition would be fulfilled. The joie de vivre of those local volunteers and the professionals who worked alongside them is matched only by their pride in what has been achieved.
The atmosphere on that bright June day in 2014, when The Queen unveiled a glittering armillary sphere of a sundial and officially opened the garden that bears her name, was one of triumph and celebration and I still find it hard to believe—when I compare the images I have from those days in 2011 with the images of the garden today— that such an achievement was possible.
The main focus of the garden, standing atop the eastern end of the slope, is an impressive and elegant belvedere, the design of which owes much to the input of The Prince himself. Constructed of warm brick, the octagonal structure supports a domed lead roof. The Dutch-style gables are topped with stone flower-filled urns. Over the Moorish-arched doors and windows, carved-stone panels of Scottish thistles alternate with dramatic lead sculptures of fiery wyverns that direct their furnace-like breath at the earth.
When describing the gazebo, it sounds like an uncomfortable hotch-potch of conflicting architectural styles, but, in reality, it’s an engaging and unique folly that perfectly suits its spot. It invites exploration and offers—from the stone terrace that surrounds it—inspiring views of the garden below and the landscape beyond.
Behind it, an extensive range of powdercoated alloy lean-to greenhouses built by the firm of Alitex bring that familiar Victoriankitchen-garden feeling to protected cultivation. Greenhouses constructed from this material have (as all keen under-cover gardeners have come to realise) the advantages of elegant, appropriately period appearance, with minimal maintenance.
Within them, tiered benching displays a wide range of ornamental plants that include a fine collection of Streptocarpus, which, nowadays—thanks to modern plant breeding—can be had in flower for the majority of the year. It’s important, not least to maintain visitor numbers, that the garden here has something of interest all the year round.
Many tender plants in terracotta pots are taken out of the greenhouses when danger of frost is past in this area and used to decorate the various terraces that pepper the garden from top to bottom. Out they go in June, to be hauled under cover for the Scottish winter in September or early October.
The Prince’s passion for certain garden flowers is much in evidence and pride of place here must go to the 130ft-long and 13ft-deep border of delphiniums that, in June, is nothing short of spectacular. Towering spires of dark blue, light blue, purple, pale pink and white are banked behind purple irises and mounds of laterflowering phlox, ensuring that the display continues for months rather than weeks.
Michael Innes, the garden designer for Dumfries House, contacted John Barrington, a specialist grower of delphiniums at Newport Mills Nursery, Wrantage in Somerset, and it was he who supplied the many varieties of Delphinium elatum that make up the sensational display. It was planted in early 2014 near the main entrance to the walled garden and all visitors to the garden in June and early July are stopped in their tracks by the spectacle. If you have a mobile phone with a camera about your person when you visit, it won’t stay in your pocket for long.
Anyone who’s grown delphiniums knows the need for an adequate support system for the flowers. In the garden at Dumfries House, that support is provided by a continuous length of wide-mesh wire netting secured horizontally to upright metal posts. The flower spikes grow through the netting, which allows a degree of movement in wind, but which prevents the tall stems from toppling or, as often happens when they’re individually staked, breaking where the tie meets the stem.
Pride of place must go to the spectacular, 130ft-long, 13ft-deep delphinium border
The garden comprises many different areas, which have been designed on practical, as well as aesthetic lines. The tapestry of dusky-pink gravel paths that cross one another at right angles provide axes, which offer an opportunity to create focal points and, as anyone who’s visited The Prince’s Gloucestershire garden at Highgrove will know, such follies and structures are always of the highest quality and frequently original in their use of structural materials.
The handiwork of Julian and Isabel Bannerman is as much in evidence in the grounds of Dumfries House as it is at Highgrove, and their use of rusticated sawn timber, pine cones and other naturally occurring and sustainable materials seems particularly suited to the Scottish landscape.
There are also moments of humour, such as that provided by the flowerpot man pushing a soil cultivator in the educational part of the walled garden.
In a garden that’s still so young, there are changes, additions and adjustments to be made: a new hydrangea avenue was planted last year on the south side of the arboretum, a new fruit garden was added in February and a medicinal garden will be constructed and planted elsewhere on the estate. Terrace borders in front of the display glasshouses have been recently renovated to give a subtropical effect and ‘pictorial annual mixes’ have been sown in the borders surrounding the Educational Garden to offer interest and bright colour in late summer.
The involvement of schools and the enrichment of the lives of local children is as important to The Prince as encouraging tourists to visit the area and thus boost the local economy. From September this year, RHS training will be provided for school leavers, ensuring that valuable horticultural skills are passed on and that a house and garden once threatened with diminution remains an important and valued focus in this part of Scotland.
Gardeners are the custodians of the immediate landscape—the people charged with brightening the earth surrounding our dwellings, whether they’re small courtyards in an urban street, flower-filled cottage gardens or the more extensive grounds that comprise the estates of country houses. It seems to me that the gardens at Dumfries House play a unique role here, in that they are certainly on the grand scale, but they inspire and, equally importantly, involve local volunteers, craftsmen and gardeners whose sense of pride in their achievement is tangible.
If The Duke of Rothesay hadn’t found a way to turn back those lorries as they attempted to carry their treasures southwards for sale, it’s impossible to believe that such a transformation could have been achieved at all, let alone within a single decade.
Thanks to his intervention and his ability to fire the enthusiasm of everyone—from
generous philanthropists to keen and willing gardeners—a Scottish treasure house’s contents and grounds have become a brilliant example of what can be done with local goodwill and the encouragement, energy and determination of a man who believes in not only talking about things, but actually getting them done.
For further information and opening hours, telephone 01290 425959 or visit www.dumfries-house.org.uk