Garden gate

Today's the day ............................ to visit the lost garden

Roma has written about The Lost Garden of Penicuik already in her journal - but today she took me to see it for myself.

It is to be found within the Penicuik Estate which was first acquired in 1654 by one John Clerk, formerly a merchant with an 'emporium' in Paris dealing in a wide variety of goods including works of art. Over the next three centuries the estate was home to one of the most remarkable families in Scottish cultural history.

The creation of a magnificent New Garden took place in the 1870s in the time of Sir George Douglas Clerk, the 8th baronet. Its design was geared to horticultural production on a very big scale: vegetables, flowers and fruit. With its imposing gates, grand staircase and hothouses ranged along the skyline it must have been an impressive sight.

A hundred years later, it had all but vanished - almost like a mirage. Good luck to those who are working hard to bring it back to life ....................