Edzell Castle - The Walled Garden

The Walled Garden

In addition to extending the castle, Sir David Lindsay also created Edzell's most unusual feature, the walled garden, or "Pleasaunce". Similar gardens were probably relatively common in Scotland during the Renaissance, but Edzell is a rare survivor. The garden would have provided a retreat from the castle, and was intended to delight, entertain, and instruct Sir David's distinguished guests. It was started around 1604, and shows signs of being hastily completed at his death in 1610.

It is a rectangular enclosure some 52 metres (171 ft) north to south, and 43.5 metres (143 ft) east to west, surrounded by a 3.6 metres (12 ft) high wall. The north wall is part of the castle courtyard, but the remaining three are intricately decorated. The walls are divided by pilasters (now removed) into regular sections, or compartments, each 3 metres (9.8 ft) across. Each compartment has a niche above, possibly once containing statues. Those on the east wall have semi-circular pediments carved with scrolls, and with the national symbols of thistle, fleur-de-lis, shamrock and rose, recalling the Union of the Crowns of England and Scotland, under James VI in 1603. The pediments on the south wall are square, while there are no niches on the west wall, indicating that work may have prematurely come to a halt on Sir David's death. Below the niches, the compartments are of alternating design. Three sets of seven carved panels occupy every other compartment. Between them, the walls are decorated with a representation of the Lindsay coat of arms, with eleven recesses in the form of a fess chequy, or chequered band, surmounted by three seven-pointed stars, taken from the Stirling of Glenesk arms. Several spaces within the walls, including inside the stars, may have been intended as nesting holes for birds.