Terraced Garden, Skibo Castle is a Grade A listed building in the Highland local planning authority area, Scotland. First listed on 18 March 1971.

Terraced Garden, Skibo Castle

WRENN ID
cold-brick-dust
Grade
A
Local Planning Authority
Highland
Constituency
Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross MP: Jamie Stone (LD)
Country
Scotland
Date first listed
18 March 1971
OS grid reference
NH 736 890
Coordinates
57.87265, -4.13169
Source
Historic Environment Scotland listing

Also on this page: flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

The Garden Pavilion at Skibo Castle, dated 1900 and designed by Ross Macbeth, is a very large Scottish Baronial-style mansion that incorporates an earlier house. It features tooled ashlar with polished ashlar dressings and has an asymmetrical design with four and five storeys. The long composite south and west facades open onto a terrace. The principal entrance is located on the east elevation and includes an imposing porte cochere. The building showcases bowed and canted bay windows, some of which are single storey while others are full height. It also has square and round towers, turrets, crenellation, crowsteps, and decorative detailing in the Scots idiom, including plant forms and animals. The windows are mullioned and transomed, and there are corbelled angle turrets. The plainer wings at the rear enclose a service court that includes built-in garages.

Inside, the mansion features an ornate interior, including a baronial hall and a library.

The gardens and terrace, designed by Thomas Mawson in 1904, include terraces in front of and descending from the house, with stone balustraded steps topped with ball finials. There is a sundial at the head of the eastern steps. To the east of the mansion, there is a walled garden that contains lean-to glasshouses and a polygonal end tower.

Additionally, there is a large range of early 20th century glasshouses to the north of the castle, which feature thistle motif cast-iron ridge cresting and decorative finials.

Local climate

Terraced Garden, Skibo Castle receives an average of 940 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 72% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 77% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 55 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 95% of listed buildings. Of these, 38 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.2°C per decade since 1991.

Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.

More on this building

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Nearby listed buildings

  1. Sundial, Skibo Castle Grade A 14 m
  2. Skibo Castle Grade A 52 m
  3. Kitchen Garden, Skibo Castle Grade A 124 m
  4. Glasshouses, Skibo Castle Grade A 143 m
  5. Garden Pavilion, Skibo Castle Grade A 210 m
  6. Swimming Pool, Skibo Castle Grade B 219 m
  7. Loch Ospisdale East, Skibo Castle Grade B 219 m
  8. Loch Ospisdale West, Skibo Castle Grade B 227 m
  9. Coach Stables, Skibo Castle Grade B 231 m
  10. Dairy House, Skibo Castle Grade B 315 m