Description

1906, Sir Robert Lorimer. Rectangular-plan, walled garden terraces formerly associated with Minto House (demolished 1992/93).

The walled garden is 90 metres in length, comprising three partitions set over three terraced levels. The walls are of squared-and-snecked rubble with cuboid balustrades, carved scroll abutments and flat-coping stones with a bevelled edge. There are two bowed sections to the north wall and buttressing to the south retaining wall. There is a twin stair at the south entrance to the central partition. Stone steps link the various levels. There is a rectangular-plan, stone-edged flowerbed to the centre of the westernmost partition.

Statement of Interest

The terraced garden at Old Parr House is a notable and largely unaltered example of the garden design work of Sir Robert Lorimer, one of the foremost architects associated with the Arts and Crafts movement in Scotland. This terraced garden of 1906 includes a number of stonework details that are characteristic of the work of Lorimer in Scotland at this time, including the buttressed, tapering retaining walls, scrolled abutments and cuboid balustrades. The rectangular plan of these stepped terrace partitions is typical of terraced garden designs of the early 20th century period in Scotland, and it appears largely unaltered to the footprint shown on the 3rd Editon Ordnance Survey map, surveyed in 1912.

Gardens associated with the Arts and Crafts movement around the turn of the 20th century were partly influenced by the historic gardens of Italy and France of the 17th and 18th centuries. The designs often incorporated partitions, steps and balustrading to provide a formal structural framework for the garden planting which tended towards the informal, with flowing herbaceous borders as popularised by garden designers Gertrude Jekyll (1843-1932) and William Robinson (1838-1945). Architects including Sir Robert Lorimer (1864-1929), Edwin Lutyens (1869-1914) and C.F.A. Voysey (1857-1941) created garden settings for their clients, predominantly in this fashion.

Sir Robert Stodart Lorimer (1864-1929) was one of the foremost Scottish architects and designers of his generation, noted for his restorations of historic houses and castles and for promoting the Arts and Crafts movement in Scotland. He carried out a number of terraced gardens at country houses in Scotland in the first decade of the 20th century including Ardkinglas House in Argyll and Bute and Hill of Tarvit House near Cupar, Fife (see separate listings). The style and detailing at Hill of Tarvit is similar to that at Minto, with tapering retaining walls and stone cuboid balusters.

Category changed from A to C, statutory address and listed building record revised in 2016. Previously listed as 'Minto House and Garden Terraces'.

External Links

• Historic Environment Scotland Listing
• Wikidata Q17570003

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Period Property Manual (New Ed)
• 
  Gwent/Monmouthshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Wales)
• 
  Drawing up a Local Listed Building Consent Order: Historic England Advice Note 6
• 
  Specifications for Building Conservation: Volume 1: External Structure: Practical Examples v. 2
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides): Written by Charles O'Brien, 2014 Edition, Publisher: Yale University Press [Hardcover]
• 
  Old House Care and Repair