Shed Range, Walled Garden, The Glen

Shed Range, Walled Garden, The Glen

This walled garden complex dates from the early to mid 19th century with significant additions and alterations made circa 1909 by Robert Lorimer. A later 19th century glasshouse designed by Mackenzie and Moncur is adjoined by a shed range to its rear.

The garden is a tall walled nursery and flower garden dominated by an arched and buttressed east wall. This wall terminates in round angle towers topped with conical roofs. A lower curved south-west wall leads to an earlier north-west wall featuring a pair of tall squared gate piers and pair of wrought-iron gates. Within the garden sits a single-storey, 11-bay potting shed range adjoining a high lean-to style glasshouse.

The shed range is constructed of squared whinstone rubble with ashlar long and short quoins and tooled window surrounds. The gatepiers and walls are built of ashlar and whinstone rubble with ashlar copes. The south-east wall is harled with ashlar copes, features an arched central entrance with tooled and moulded surrounds, and flat ashlar coping. The towers are harled with tooled ashlar dressings.

The north-west farm steading elevation presents a mid-height whinstone rubble wall arching up and flanking the pair of high square ashlar gate piers. These piers feature an advanced base plinth and string course below moulded flat caps. The pair of mid-height decorative gates display scroll and circle motifs with an iron grate inset into the ground. The wall adjoins Silo Cottage grounds and continues in a rough arc to become the south-west elevation, where a later square-arched entrance with brick dressings leads to the east end.

The south-east house and garden elevation displays a long harled concave arched wall with ashlar dressings and copes. Four advanced retaining walls with stepped buttress ends are arranged in pairs either side of a central arched entrance. This entrance features rusticated ashlar long and short quoins, a roll-moulded surround, and a pair of decorative wrought-iron scroll-work gates with scroll and circle motif dog bars. Tall harled circular angle towers stand at either end with droved ashlar dressings to the front-facing entrance door (on the south tower). The towers have slit windows to the sides and moulded eaves courses in lieu of rainwater goods. Conical roofs with finials surmount each tower. On the south tower, an inset stone plaque with moulded surround sits above the door, bearing in relief the inscription: "WHILE THE EARTH REMAINETH, SEED TIME AND HARVEST SHALL NOT CEASE". The interior of this tower forms a gazebo with timber boarded walls, ceiling, and a rustic bench on tree trunk legs.

The north-east elevation is a fairly plain whinstone rubble wall angled and terraced around the Gardener's House (listed separately). To the north, stone steps and a former gated entrance lead to the frameyard, with gables of the potting shed range and Nursery Cottages flanking the walls.

An internal wall and steps feature a coursed whinstone rubble wall (formerly part of a now demolished range, with remnants of whitewashed plaster on the west face) with a raised centre and stylised castellated steps topped with squared urn decorations. To the east, a flight of ashlar steps with low wing walls and large ashlar vase planters at each corner (the bottom left now missing) provides further access.

The glasshouse and shed range sit to the south-east face. A long timber and cast-iron lean-to style glasshouse range, designed by Mackenzie and Moncur, features a very high ridge and semi-glazed entrance doors at each end. To the north-west stands a single-storey, 11-bay rectangular-plan lean-to potting shed range adjoining the glasshouse to its rear. The shed range has timber boarded doors to bays 2, 4, and 7, with ashler dressed windows to other bays. A door opens to the south-west end, and the north-east end is blind. High arch-top wing walls project from each end, with a pedestrian arch at the west (surmounted by the head of a garden statue) and a squared cart arch to the east (its gates now missing).

The shed range features eight lying-pane glazing in timber sash and case windows with horned upper sashes; the glasshouse has plate glass. The glazed mono-pitch roof features a timber and cast-iron frame with decorative braces. The shed range roof is slated mono-pitch, partially replaced to the south-west with later corrugated-metal sheeting. The angle towers have conical fish-scale slate roofs with lead ball and spike finials. Originally fitted with painted cast-iron rainwater goods, little of which survives. A small squared ashlar wallhead stack with a single can sits on the shed range.

The interior of the glasshouse is subdivided into two sections, with the fruit section to the south. A cast-iron walkway runs the full length of the glasshouse, resting on whitewashed rubble supports. The shed range interiors are fairly plain and remain in use for garden purposes and storage.