Gardens

Rose Garden

The formal topiary garden by the Dower House is of early layout. It consists of four beds of roses enclosed by box hedges and with topiarised Irish yew, English yew or box at each corner. The sundial in the centre of the four beds dates from around 1660 and is decorated with the Drummond arms and the initials EJP for James Earl of Perth. The sundial may well have been built by the same craftsmen who built the much larger and magnificent sundial at Drummond Castle. The roses in the rose beds were all replanted in November 2004.

Below the Rose Garden is a high retaining wall facing the river against which fruit trees are trained. This, or an earlier version, may have been what was referred to in the poem believed to be written by James IV to his lover Margaret Drummond one verse of which reads:

‘Joy was within and Joy without
Under that wlonkest waw
Quhair Tay ran down with stremis stout
Full stretch under Stobshaw’

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