Not far from the handsome village of Gifford, in East Lothian, is Broadwoodside, a small estate centred around a restored farmstead. On the edge of woodland, and with a view to the house, stands what appears to be a Georgian temple. It has actually stood on this spot for a couple of decades, having started life as a portico added to a Scottish mansion in the Victorian period. It was moved here as a landscape feature when the mansion was remodelled in the last years of the twentieth century.

That mansion was Strathleven, near Dumbarton, a house completed in the early years of the eighteenth century, and originally called Levenside. The house changed names after it was bought by James Ewing in the 1830s. Ewing extended the property and added the portico seen in this postcard view.

By the later years of the twentieth century Strathleven House was in a sorry state after years of vandalism and general neglect had taken their toll. In 1986 the mansion was bought by the Scottish Heritage Buildings Trust and a programme of restoration, which would last for fourteen years, was begun under the direction of architect Nicholas Groves-Raines. The decision was taken to return the house to its original appearance, and the planners gave consent for the Victorian portico to be taken down on condition that a new home could be found for it.

Nicholas Groves-Raines was also the architect who worked with Robert and Anna Dalrymple to transform Broadwoodside from an abandoned shell into the very attractive quadrangle of buildings seen today. Work began in 1997 to restore the original farmstead and Groves-Raines designed a vivid yellow ogee-roofed pavilion to fully enclose the inner courtyard – now a beautiful garden and home to William, the parrot with a penchant for Brahms.

How could the Dalrymples resist when Groves-Raines rang to offer them the Strathleven portico? A perfect site for it was chosen across the fields from the house, creating a feature on a circuit walk around the Dalrymples ferme ornée. Work was completed in 2000, with the temple serving the classic twin purposes of being an eye-catcher from the house, and a destination from which the view back to the steading can be appreciated.

Broadwoodside is open on a number of days each year and by appointment. A sumptuous book on the estate will be published next year (Robert Dalrymple is a noted book designer) but meanwhile you can read more here.

The Dalrymples are continuing a noble tradition of repurposing porches and porticos as garden features. To give just a few examples…

At Hodnet Hall in Shropshire the portico of nearby Apley Castle was salvaged from the 1950s demolition process by Brigadier Algernon George William Heber-Percy (1904-1961) who intended to use it as a garden feature. This did not happen in his lifetime, but his family had it re-erected in a field opposite the hall in his memory, with work complete in 1970.

When the Royal Spa Concert Hall in Harrogate was pulled down in 1939-40 the stone portico was rescued by the Yorkshire Archaeological Society. After some years in storage, the masonry was presented in 1961 to the Yorkshire Horticultural Society, which was extending its show gardens at Harlow Carr on the edge of Harrogate. The idea was to erect the portico as a ‘Grecian Temple’, for the directors of the society believed ‘no ornamental garden of any pretensions should be without one’. The plan to put up the pediment was abandoned for reasons of cost, but the columns remain a popular attraction in the gardens (now Royal Horticultural Society).

On a vast scale is the landscape feature in Heaton Park, on the edge of Manchester, created from the colonnade of the old Town Hall when it was rebuilt in 1912. The local authority, tasked with the maintenance of this feature, must wish that they too had simply erected the columns.

Thanks to Robert & Anna Dalrymple for their help with this post, and thank you for reading. Your thoughts are always welcome and you can get in touch via the comments box at the foot of the page. 

Gosford House, a seat of the Earl of Wemyss and March, is a stunning mansion which looks across the Firth of Forth to Edinburgh. Designed by the eminent architect Robert Adam (1728-1792) shortly before his death, building work began in the 1790s. The house sits in the prettiest of grounds, with watercourses, ponds, summerhouses and a sublime mausoleum. In the following century one of the summerhouses was given a new use by the Aberlady Curling Club, which held matches there whenever the pond was suitably frozen.

The construction of the new house at Gosford (also known as Wemyss House at this date) for Francis Charteris, 6th earl of Wemyss (1723-1808), went on for almost two decades, and was beset with problems from the start. It was said to be built of local ‘sea stones which no art can every dry’, and in the 1820s and 1830s visitors believed it was ‘totally uninhabitable’, and that it would ‘shortly be pulled down’. The family continued to live in the old house, not far from the new site, and only a few rooms in the new mansion were used as a picture gallery. Happily the pessimistic predictions were wrong, and the house survives today, with rebuilt wings flanking Adam’s central block.

As the construction of the house dragged on, work continued to transform the demesne. Passing by in 1796 the Duke of Rutland couldn’t believe that Lord Wemyss would build a house in such an ‘objectionable’ situation in a ‘barren rabbit warren’, so clearly a landscape and garden had to be conjured out of nothing. The design of the pleasure grounds is attributed to James Ramsay (died 1820), a Scottish architect and landscaper, and the general design of ponds, walks and rides was decided by the time William Forrest surveyed Haddingtonshire for his map dated 1799. Sadly, this map, and Ainslie’s estate map of 1808, do not detail the smaller garden buildings (although the mighty mausoleum is shown) so their date remains uncertain, but by 1832 a visitor could describe the ‘labyrinth of groves and walks’ and the ‘grottoes of every kind of material’.

One of these ‘grottoes’ is the building at the head of the pond, which is marked as ‘summerhouse’ on the 1st edition Ordnance Survey map, published in 1854. Originally thatched, the little rustic pavilion and its flanking walls are built out of tufa, and traces of its shell-work decoration survive. This is the building which became the base of the Aberlady Curling Club after it was formed in 1860: curling stones and brushes were stored inside, and the room also gave players warmth and shelter.

Curling had been an important sport in Scotland for centuries, but was very much in vogue in the 19th century, its popularity summed up in a newspaper article of 1896: ‘In the society of Scotsmen it is universally admitted that there is no winter amusement which excites more lively interest than a well-contested match on the ice’. And although our writer mentions the Scotsmen, the game was also popular with female players.

The pond at Gosford was considered perfect for the sport, as its sheltered situation ensured the ice was preserved for a long period. In 1886 Lord Wemyss, as patron of the club, was thanked for making the ponds available, and allowing the game to be played with ‘so much personal comfort’. Such is the local passion that when Lord Elcho, heir to the estate, celebrated his 21st birthday in 1933, the club presented him with commemorative curling stones. The present Earl of Wemyss and March is patron of the club today, and although matches have for many years been played in indoor rinks, there was a Grand Outdoor Event at Gosford when conditions allowed in 2010. If you’d like to see the club in action have a look at their Flickr album here https://www.flickr.com/photos/aberladycurling/albums/72157625562513200

In recent years a major project has seen the restoration of the pleasure grounds. The park is open daily and you can find out more here http://www.gosfordhouse.co.uk/house-tours-grounds/

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