Private Guided Tours of The Dalrymples' Ancestral Walled Garden
Following its restoration earlier this year, the five-acre garden of Leuchie Walled Garden, a sleek mid-Century post-Bauhaus house, where Sir Hew Dalrymple, the current 11th Baronet and his siblings spent an idyllic childhood, is perfectly poised for close inspection.
Private Garden Tours
New in 2023 for green fingered guests of this rental property will be a tour of its large tranquil garden, privately guided by Sir Hew’s wife, Janey Dalrymple, the mastermind behind its recent transformation. Following the tour, guests will return to their luxurious holiday let near North Berwick, laden with fresh flowers and greenery, cut by Janey herself during the guided tour, with which to decorate their home-from- home further.
Having spectacularly renovated the house for 21st Century living in readiness for its exclusive holiday lets, the Dalrymples would have been forgiven for simplifying the two hectare 18th Century walled garden surrounding the East Lothian property.
But Janey Dalrymple had other ideas. She made it her mission to completely transform the overgrown northern half of the garden, drawing on experience from her own garden at nearby Blackdykes, and taking inspiration from Tom Stuart-Smith’s work at Hepworth Wakefield Garden in Yorkshire.
Initially built to provide the 18th Century Leuchie House with fruit and vegetables, the secluded garden, with its own mild micro-climate, remains a haven from the wildest of Scottish weather. It is still split into two parts, with the northern half bordered by fruit trees and a colourful herbaceous border, while the southern half remains a working kitchen garden, with produce ripe for picking by guests.
Transforming the Garden
The 100m long south-facing herbaceous border was well maintained and retained, but the shrubbery had run wild. Plans were in place by September last year for a more contemporary scheme and a simplified layout where the old shrubbery had been.
The new planting was defined by the structure of trios of Ilex Crenata, Euhorbia Melliflua and Prunus Tai Haku, which were in turn surrounded with airy grasses. Having planted hundreds of bulbs, tulips and allium filled the garden with colour from April this year.
Three Irish yew trees were removed to open up the views and let the light in, two Edwardian formal gardens were restored, new planting areas were created, the potting sheds and paths around it were repaired, and the south-facing wall in the north garden was softened with climbing roses.
The Mound Garden
One of Janey’s more spectacular designs is the creation of a ‘mound garden’– a ‘circular island’ that couldn’t be flattened but that is now beautifully planted with a great white cherry, magnolia and ‘false acacia’.
Modernism & Tradition at Leuchie Walled Garden
The single-storey home of the same name, Leuchie Walled Garden, remains an outstanding example of a mid-Century modern house. It was originally designed and created in 1960 for his father by the highly regarded architect James Dunbar-Nasmith, winning numerous plaudits for its bold design.
While other mid-Century houses are fitted out with furnishings of the period, Leuchie Walled Garden, as the house is called, was and still is designed around the family’s 300 year-old collection of furniture and portraits: an intriguing juxtaposition between modernity and tradition.
Outdoor Attractions
Apart from the delights of the garden, there’s plenty to keep rental guests outdoors, with a newly refurbished tennis court, golf pitching range, croquet and boules.
From the walled garden, a gate leads to woodland and a further 60 acres of landscaped private estate where, in the spring, the grounds are carpeted with daffodils and cherry blossom.
North Berwick & The Golf Coast
However, it is not just the house and garden that are extraordinary. Just two miles away is the seaside town of North Berwick, affectionately known as the ‘Salcombe of the North’, and with East Lothian known as Scotland’s ‘Golf Coast’, keen golfers staying at Leuchie have no less than a dozen courses within 20 minutes’ of the front door, including Muirfield and North Berwick’s historic West Links course, two of Scotland’s finest.