Newhailes and Inveresk

53 Comments
Front view
Newhailes

Newhailes, then called Whitehill, was built around 1686 and extended in the 18th century by the Dalrymple family who added a library wing and the ‘Great Apartment’. In 1997, it passed into the care of the National Trust for Scotland. I can report that the interiors are magnificent (you can imagine me swooning over a whole library wing) but access is by guided tour and no photography is allowed, so I can’t show you. However, before our tour we followed the very pleasant trail round the grounds, and I can certainly show you that.

The Trust is busy restoring the landscape, but even in its current state you can still get an impression of how it might have looked to 18th-century visitors. The first curiosities we came across were the Shell Grotto and the remains of a Tea House, both dating from the mid-1700s.

Shell Grotto
Tea House

We skirted the Cow Park (where I am standing) and the Sheep Park (where John is standing) which are divided by the Ladies’ Walk. This is the artificially raised path to the right of the other picture. It’s very overgrown now so you walk alongside it, but its original purpose was to elevate ladies in both body and mind, with views back to the house one way and out to the skyline of Arthur’s Seat and the Pentland Hills the other.

Ladies’ Walk
Cow Park
Sheep Park

This is the view of the house from the back:

Rear view
Rear view

From here, we moved round to the front to meet the guide for our tour.

Front view
Entrance

Our day wasn’t finished yet, because close to Newhailes is another NTS site, Inveresk Lodge Garden. We had another lovely stroll here, although by this time it was raining. That’s a day out in Scotland for you! Beautiful sunshine in the morning and cold and wet in the afternoon. Musn’t grumble – it accounts for the lush greenness. Enjoy!

Inveresk Lodge Garden
Inveresk Lodge Garden
Inveresk Lodge Garden
Inveresk Lodge Garden
Inveresk Lodge Garden
Inveresk Lodge Garden
Inveresk Lodge Garden
Inveresk Lodge Garden
Inveresk Lodge Garden
Inveresk Lodge Garden
Inveresk Lodge Garden
Inveresk Lodge Garden
Inveresk Lodge Garden
Scotland, UK , , ,

53 Comments »

  1. Lovely gardens, but what my mind is still focused on is that library wing! What an amazing thing! I’d love to see it in person. I’m always sad when I’m not allowed to take photos somewhere, but the benefit is focusing on it without thinking about the camera. (Sorry about my delayed response – it’s been a very busy couple of weeks at school, and I’m now getting caught up on all my blog reading.)

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  7. Newhailes looks like a wonderful house to explore, although I have a hard time calling it “house”. The elevated Ladies’ Walk is something they should have at more places, where there is beauty to look “down at” or “up at”. 🙂

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  10. That’s the great thing about the UK. So much history and varied scenery in a relatively small compact area. North America and Australia have many marvels but you have to drive huge distances between them. Know the district well but not the buildings or the gardens. Looks nice.

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    • That’s very true! In general anyway – having just returned from 3 weeks in the US I can report that Rocky Mountain, Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks are very accessible from one another.

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  12. This looks like a beautiful place to spend the day. I’d love to see the inside of this house but the gardens are lovely. The one picture of that breathtaking flowers draping around a seating area is beautiful.

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  15. I was saying much the same thing to Kate (Rough Seas) earlier in the day, Anabel. It wouldn’t be so beautiful if it wasn’t for the weather. And we’ve had a good spell just lately. 🙂
    Have you ever been to Woburn Abbey? I’ve been watching Phil Spencer’s Stately Homes series and there was the most amazing shell grotto there.

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  16. I understand why they don’t allow photography, but it’s a bit of a shame as I would have loved to seen pictures of the library. I do love a good library 🙂 But I did enjoy the garden pictures – looks like a lovely place to meander around.

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  17. Both look like wonderful places to visit. I love to imagine the gardens of old – but I think sometimes what I am imagining are the dresses and outfits of old – they are like gardens on their own (at least in my mind, where they are always super fancy).

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  20. Hi Anabel,
    I’ve been thinking lately, and your post here brought it to my mind again: why don’t places that do not allow photography inside [which I can understand] sell their own pictures, say on DVDs or other storage media? In the “good old days” of analogue photography you could buy slides nearly everwhere.
    Thanks for sharing these pictures here, and have a good week,
    Pit

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    • That’s a good idea and I don’t know the answer! I don’t really know why they do it, though someone suggested on another blog that people taking photographs during a guided tour would be distracting. No flash I can understand more easily.

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      • Well, I can see and understand that it would be distracting during a guided tour. Or, e.g., when I think of those throngs of tourists shuffling around Westminster Abbey. All that klicking away. I really wouldn’t want it.

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