Drumlanrig Castle and the Douglases

EARLY HISTORY OF DURISDEER. 2 1
The regular gardens, with one designed to be
made on the back of the plumbery, the outer court before
the house, and the house itself make nine square plots
of ground, whereof the kitchen garden, the court before
the house, and the garden designed make three ; my lady
Duchess's garden, the house, and the last parterre and
the flower garden make other three, that is nine in all,
and the castle is in the centre. Only as to the last
three, the westernmost is always more than a story above
the rest. As to these called irregular gardens, because
the course of the Parkburn would not allow them to be
square, they are very pretty, and well suited to one
another. They call one part thereof Virginia, the other
Barbadoes; there goes a large gravel walk down betwixt
them from the south parterre to the cascade." This
cascade is no longer in existence, but within the recol-
lection of the present generation the remains of it, with a
leaden figure of a man, who was well known as " Jock
and the Horn," could be seen. The gardens were still
in existence in their original form in 1772, when Pennant
passed through Scotland. He refers to them thus : — " In
the gardens, which are most expensively cut out of a rock,
is a bird cherry of a great size, not less than 7
feet 8 inches in girth; and among several fine silver
firs one 13^ feet in circumference." It is difficult
to understand what Pennant means when he says
that the gardens were cut out of a rock. There
must, indeed, have been a great deal of expense
incurred in levelling and making the ground, but there
does not appear to have been much rock, if any, to blast.
The bird cherry or gean (French guigne) no longer exists,
nor any large silver firs ; there is, however, a fine specimen
of the common Scotch fir close to the side of the old