Edzell Castle
the charming formal walled garden
The Pleasance
The "pleasance', or walled garden, was added in 1604 and is surrounded by a wall that is curious pocked with niches in a checkerboard pattern. The gardener told us that it was likely that in the spring, the holes were filled with flowering plants to present a yellow and blue checkerboard pattern, in the collors of the Lindsay family. They don't plant them now, of course, because the water would damage the old walls, but its easy to imagine the walls bursting with color. Among the planting spaces on the wall are spots for decorative plaques and ovals, which are a unique find in Scotland..
The current knot garden was deisgned and planted in the 1930s -- and one person, one gardener, handles it all. Woah.
There are three sets of seven carved panels, presenting the Cardinal Virtues, Liberal Arts, and Planetary Deities. They are about 1m high, and based on a series of engravings and patterns from Nuremburg. The reptitions of sevens and threes is carried out through the garden.
the checkerboards in the walls, and the carved plaques
There is a small building (called a "summer" house in the garden, which is a lovely sitting-room sort of arrangement, open to the garden, with aplace for tables and chairs. It is two storeys with a vaulted cellar. I can esaily imagine sitting here in the afternoon with a breeze coming through, admiring the garden.
the "summer house", with its own stair tower and rib-vaulted sitting rooms