Spot willow sculptures in the walled garden at Culzean

The walled garden at the National Trust for Scotland's Culzean Castle is now home to three new willow sculptures!

Article Source: National Trust for Scotland
First Published: 16 September 2020 16:04
Updated: 16 September 2020 16:05

The sculptures celebrate the garden as a productive space that boasts a variety of fruit and vegetables that are sold and used in the café on the estate.

Designed by a Galloway-based artist, Trevor Leat, the sculptures are in the North Walled Garden and have been crafted using willow as well as other sustainable and natural resources.

In the newly replanted orchard, there’s a giant willow pear and a statue of a gardener can be found outside Gardens House, which was home to the estate’s head gardener for centuries. The final instalment is the Ailsa Onion Arber, which was originally bred by Culzean’s head gardener, David Murray, in 1887 and named after the island visible from the castle. These onions are still regarded as the most successful all-purpose onions.

In the 1700s, the gardens at Culzean were bountiful growing spaces and had a reputation for cutting-edge gardening techniques. Since 2018, the Trust’s staff and volunteers have been working hard to restore the garden to a successful and innovative space of production. The garden now harvests a wide variety of produce and the herbaceous borders are in the process of being lifted and replanted.

Gareth Clingan, Operations Manager at Culzean Castle and Country Park said: “There’s already so much to explore at Culzean Castle and we’re excited to have these new sculptures on display for visitors, they really bring the history of the garden to life. Since work began in early 2018, our fantastic team of staff and volunteers have transformed the gardens, creating a new vegetable garden, extensive fruit cages and renovating the glasshouses.

“I’d like to thank the volunteers at Friends of Culzean, who run the second hand bookshop at Culzean, for their generous donation that has allowed us to install these sculptures and will also allow us to add a number of carved benches and stone sculptures to the garden later this year.”

With over 240 hectares to explore, the country park and gardens at Culzean Castle are open to the public, but the castle itself remains closed due to the coronavirus crisis. Culzean Castle and Country Park is part of the ‘We’re Good to Go’ scheme, which means an official Covid-19 risk assessment has been carried out to check everything is in place to operate safely.

The National Trust for Scotland celebrates Scotland’s heritage and relies on the support of its members and donors to carry out its important work of caring for the natural and built heritage of Scotland for everyone to enjoy.

Find out more at www.nts.org.uk

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