Monteviot House & Gardens, Jedburgh TD8 6UH
Monteviot House occupies a south-facing position overlooking the River Teviot. For 300 years this spot has been home to the Marquises of Lothian with almost every generation adding something to the characterful building, including a Palladian facade and a Jacobean extension. Michael Kerr, the current Marquis has described the building as it is today as “an eccentric and tangled mixture of architecture.”
The gardens too have been altered and redesigned over the years and the result is a rich mixture of original features with exciting new additions backed by established policy woodlands and an arboretum of handsome trees that includes walnuts, chestnuts and Turkey oaks.
This was originally a Victorian pinetum, but later broad-leafed trees were included and now the area is carpeted in spring, first with daffodils and then by bluebells.
Close to the house there is a traditional herb garden with box hedges and a sundial, while from a stone terrace there are very fine views across the river where it curves around the Monteviot estate.
Further away from the house there is a Sorbus walk and a recently-replanted rose garden, filled with David Austin shrub roses that start flowering in late May and continue filling the borders with flowers and scent well into autumn.
The river garden is one of the longest-established features and it is surrounded by yew hedges. It has mixed plantings of flowers, shrubs and trees and a series of steps leads to a landing on the riverbank.
An Oriental water garden is fed by springs and crossed by wooden bridges and is filled with damp-loving species, including hostas, irises and blue poppies while the Dene garden has four ponds and a viewing platform giving another aspect across the Teviot.
In early summer a laburnum tunnel drips with yellow blossoms. This tunnel was planted to mark the Millennium but a newer addition is the Garden of Persistent Imagination, with stone structures, climbing roses, an avenue of clematis and a large stone moon gate.
The gardens also include a late summer border filled with plants that flower in August and September and there is also a five-acre winter garden, where the 350 trees have been chosen for their ornamental bark.
Monteviot is crossed by Dere Street, the Roman road that once stretched from York to Trimontium, the roman fort near Melrose that was once the Roman headquarters north of Hadrian’s Wall.
The hill behind the estate is covered in the remains of Pictish forts, but its most imposing feature is the 150 foot high column, erected over a decade from 1817, by the 6th Marquis in commemoration of the victory of his distant relative, the Duke of Wellington, over Napoleon at Waterloo.
Since it was completed the column has formed a distinctive landmark an a beacon that has pinned the Monteviot estate to the Borders countryside.
Details
Monteviot Gardens are open daily, 12 noon-5pm.
Tickets: £6/under 16s free
Tel: 01835 830380
enquiries@monteviot.com
www.monteviot.com
In association with Discover Scottish Gardens www.discoverscottishgardens.org
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