Walled Garden, Younger Botanic Garden, Benmore House

The Walled Garden at Benmore is a large formal garden of the late 19th century, forming part of the designed landscape at Benmore House. It is roughly rectangular in plan, with stone walls on the north, east and south sides, the north boundary partly formed by the rear wall of the steading buildings.

The garden house stands at the north-east corner. It is a rectangular-plan building of 1½ storeys with a gable roof, built in squared rubble with ashlar dressings and slate roof. It features mullioned and transomed windows and stone skews. The building sits half within and half without the walled garden, with the roof stepped down at the division. The only remaining section of greenhouse adjoins the garden house to the west.

The walled garden walls are constructed partly from rubble with semicircular ashlar copes and partly from squared rubble with flat copes. Wrought iron gates provide access. The garden house has predominantly replacement glazing.

A bronze fountain depicting a winged cherub and fish originally stood in the formal garden as a formally placed focal point towards the east end. It was later moved to the Duck Pond, south of the walled garden, where it replaced another fountain. An armillary sundial of 1978 now stands where the fountain once stood, and a new focal point was created at the west end with the Bayley Balfour Memorial Hut.

The walled garden dates to around 1875, when it was built to incorporate both a kitchen garden and a large formal garden for the Benmore Estate. Early photographs show it in its prime with large greenhouses on three sides that dwarfed the garden house, and a series of footpaths dividing the garden. Most of these greenhouses were already in ruin by the early 1900s and were subsequently cleared through the 20th century.

The walled garden was built following the acquisition of Benmore Estate in 1870 by James Duncan, a Greenock sugar refiner. Duncan carried out extensive improvements to the estate, including extending the house, building workers' cottages, and constructing the walled garden with its associated greenhouses.

The walled garden contributes to the overall landscape at Benmore, which is now the setting for Benmore-Younger Botanic Garden, run by the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. The garden and designed landscape is notable for its collection of coniferous trees, planted by successive owners since around 1820.

The walled garden is part of a B-Group listing that includes Benmore House, the Steading, North Lodge and Gates, the Golden Gates, Puck's Hut, the Fernery and cottages to the east of the walled garden. It lies within the Benmore-Younger Botanic Garden Designed Landscape.