The enchanting gardens of Aldourie Castle on the shores of Loch Ness
The staid gardens on the shores of the Loch have been transformed into something much more thrilling, says Fiona McCarthy
There is much to love about Aldourie Castle, bought in 2014 by the Danish fashion billionaires Anders and Anne Holch Povlsen. With its 19th-century baronial conical turrets, oriel windows, rope-moulded masonry and crenellated tower, and its position nestled at the northeastern tip of Loch Ness, the building looks like something out of a fairytale. But it is Aldourie’s gardens and parklands, masterminded by the landscape designer Tom Stuart-Smith, that truly capture the imagination.
When he first visited, in 2015, it was, he says, “50 acres of mown grass and a custard-coloured castle which was terribly bland”. To the Holch Povlsens, though, Aldourie — set in 500 acres of the Scottish Highlands — was the ideal next addition to their 220,000-acre Wildland conservation project; the perfect spot, Anne says, “to bring back biodiversity, to support the birds, bees and butterflies, while honouring and preserving the history of the estate”.
Stuart-Smith is renowned for his modern, naturalistic touch, which is in evidence not only in the tranquil formal garden that immediately surrounds the castle but in the reinstated Victorian-style walled garden and orchard. He has added swathes of wildflower meadows and shored up the future of the estate’s ancient arboretum by removing invasive rhododendrons and planting more than a thousand trees. “Lots of oaks and pines, nothing terribly fancy,” he says.
With the intention of creating “small experiences” wherever you wander, Stuart-Smith has carved out deep, long westward views of Loch Ness by thinning or raising the canopies of trees and laying out paths to wind around centuries-old sycamores and larches. Peaceful nooks — including little huts, inviting dells, a new belvedere pavilion (designed by Ptolemy Dean, the lead architect on Aldourie’s transformation) — have been created, in which visitors can immerse themselves fully in nature, whether sitting quietly and reading a book, staring at the sky, having a picnic by a stream or swimming in the loch.
Stuart-Smith, who founded his practice 25 years ago, has designed each area of the estate to have a distinct character. Some parts feel “quite rough and wild, others looked-after and rich”, he says. In the formal garden, which runs either side of crisp green lawn that stretches from the castle terrace to a pebbly loch shore, a criss-cross of herbaceous borders affords what he calls “diagonal rather than direct views. You get a much better feeling about a garden when you’re in it, rather than at the end of it.”
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In the late-blooming summer garden, the shades of soft pink Japanese anemones, fluffy cerise Joe-Pye weed, lilac asters and golden grasses echo the understated colour palette Anne has chosen for the 19th-century interiors, which she planned in collaboration with Will Fisher and Charlotte Freemantle, the founders of the antique specialists Jamb. In winter, the skeletons of plants and flower heads are left untouched to lend interest, while the beech topiary, clipped to look a little like bobbly people, turns a warming russet that harmonises with the castle’s terracotta façade.
The walled garden, once just a single wall, a few blackberry bushes and a couple of glasshouses restored by the previous owner, Roger Tempest, is now a hive of wild productivity across 1.5 acres. A central vegetable patch bursting with lettuces, onions, beetroots, leafy brassicas, fennel and cut flowers, as well as heritage apples and pears trailing up and over a wrought-iron tunnel, is surrounded by serpentine borders flowing with dancing fountain grasses, pink echinacea and fiery knotweed, delicate yarrow and mauve lacecap hydrangeas.
The estate owes much of its beauty to its head gardener, Elliott Forsyth, and his seven-strong team. “For this place to thrive, it has had to take on some of their character as well as mine,” Stuart-Smith says. “It can’t be treated like a frozen piece of music, because sooner or later it will die.”
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It’s the same attitude he employs for all his projects, which have included gardens at Chatsworth House and Windsor Castle and others abroad, in locations from Berlin and Beijing to the Balearics. “I’ve reached the grand old age of 63 and part of the thrill is engaging with people who know a place and culture so much better than I do, drawing on their strengths and bringing out the best in them,” he says.
The same could be said for Aldourie. “I wanted the garden to have a bit of bravado and panache without being camp, because that would belittle the castle, which punches above its weight with such great spirit,” Stuart-Smith says. “I’ve tried to strike a balance between grandeur and intimacy.”
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