Great Garden, Pitmedden House

Great Garden at Pitmedden House is a significant historical site, established on May 2, 1675, with the initials of Sir Alexander Seton and Dame Margaret Lauder. The garden features a large rectangular area measuring approximately 190 by 160 yards, which includes a western upper garden with the house at its western boundary and an eastern lower garden with raised terraces to the north and south. The southern terrace was demolished in the 19th century and has only been partly rebuilt.

Notable features of the garden include: a) a fountain in the upper garden, recreated in 1956, which incorporates a 17th-century cubical stone adorned with four mask heads and a ball finial; b) a gateway and stairs leading to the lower garden, characterized by rusticated plain pilastered piers topped with pineapple-type finials, flanked by short balustrades, and featuring double stairs to the garden with a central niche and bee boles in the north and south walls; c) twin pavilions, each two stories high and constructed of rubble with quoins at the corners and openings, with groin-vaulted ground floors. The northern pavilion was reroofed in 1956 with its original ogee form, and its upper room is lined with Woolmet panelling dating from around 1686 or later. The southern pavilion features an early 19th-century pyramid roof that was extended in the same style as the house; d) a fountain designed by J.S. Richardson in 1956, made from fragments of the Pitmedden fountain and Robert Mylne's Linlithgow Cross fountain, which has an octagonal basin and a central bowl on a baluster, richly sculptured and re-erected by Henry Macdonald, an estate mason; e) a sundial that was set on its current site in 1958, previously located to the northwest of the house. This sundial stands 8 feet 9 inches high, has an octagonal facet head, a ball finial, and a simple shaft with a chamfer and tapering neck above, resting on a three-step podium.