The story starts with the first Sir Hew Dalrymple, Lord North Berwick, 1652-1737. One of the most successful lawyers of his day and Lord President of the Session, he was the most senior judge in Scotland. Well paid like many of today’s lawyers, he went on a spending spree, purchasing the North Berwick estate in 1694, adding Tantallon Castle from the Douglas family in 1699 and the Bass Rock from the Crown in 1706. He purchased Leuchie House and its surrounding land in 1701.
The Walled Garden stands in the landscaped grounds of Leuchie House, a beautiful Georgian mansion (now Scotland’s leading respite care home) which was built in 1780 by the second Sir Hew.
Twenty years later, the fourth Sir Hew built the walled garden. He had married Lady Jane, the daughter of Admiral Duncan, the victor of the famous naval battle at Camperdown. They were socialites who attended the famous Duchess of Richmond’s ball, the night before the Battle of Waterloo. In her diary Lady Jane recounts spending the evening on the sofa with the Duke of Wellington before he set off for the battlefield.
The fortunes of the family ebbed and flowed over the next hundred years. In prosperous times, the fifth Sir Hew expanded Leuchie House in 1850. In the depression after the First World War, the ninth baronet had to sell off most of the estate to pay off death duties and debts incurred by his father.
The late Sir Hew 10th Baronet and his wife, Lady Anne-Louise, parents of the current owner, inherited Leuchie House in 1959 but reluctantly decided that the big house was too large to live in. They built this house where they raised their family of four boys and lived there happily for 60 years. After their death, we decided to renovate the house and share our family home with a wider audience.
