Fruit Store And Terraced Walk, Walled Gardens, Newhailes, Musselburgh

The Tea House at Newhailes in Musselburgh dates from around 1780 and is part of a designed landscape that includes various features to the north and west of the main house, which are now in poor condition.

The walled garden is located immediately to the west of the house and north of the stables. It has a roughly trapezoidal shape, is open on one side, and is compartmented. The garden likely incorporates earlier rubble stone boundary walls to the west. The brick walls rise to about 12 inches at their highest point, with ashlar coping and curved stone on the sides. There are ashlar dressings at the pedestrian gateways, and evidence suggests the presence of former heating ducts and greenhouse facilities.

Adjacent to this is the walled flower garden, which features brick-lined walls approximately 12 inches high, with sections that sweep down at intervals. The walls follow a depressed arch line to the northwest and are closed by a straight wall to the southeast, topped with gablet stone coping. The interior includes segmental-headed recesses, some of which are brick-blocked.

In the eastern corner of the walled flower garden is the fruit store, which has a rectangular plan and a classical design. It is constructed of ashlar and possibly Coade stone, featuring a broad architraved opening with voussoirs and a cornice.

To the north of the planned landscape lies the remains of a rectangular-plan classical tea house, built of stugged ashlar and featuring a lugged architraved entrance.

There is also a subterranean ice house located in the walled flower garden to the east. It has a droved ashlar opening above ground with a mould behind and ashlar coping at the wallhead. The interior was not seen during the last inspection in 1994.

Lastly, a raised terrace walk runs southwest to northeast to the north of the house, supported by a battered brick terrace retaining wall. This walkway formerly had a bridge at the northeast end that connected to a ha-ha wall, providing access to the woodland behind.