Saughton Rose Gardens

Bonjour!

I recently discovered an historic garden in Edinburgh called the Saughton Rose Gardens, which is situated within Saughton Park. The park itself has foundations in 1128 from King David I’s charter and was originally called the Willow Plantation. The grounds had different names, including Salectun and Salchtone. Indeed, Saugh is Old Scots for ‘willow’, as well as Seileach in Gaelic and Salix in Latin. This is where the name Saughton originates. I love historic place-names and etymologies. Especially when they involve Latin and the Celtic languages. Being a classicist in Edinburgh (also called the Athens of the North), it is so fun to not only see the classical architecture, but to see the play in words and names like at Saughton Park. How crazy is it that the ancient Scottish names for ‘willow’ are so similar to the Latin, to the point where they are almost interchangeable? So much fun.

Anyway, this then-known willowy farm had a tower-house called Saughtonhall belonged to Holyrood Abbey until the middle of Elizabeth I’s reign in 1587. (It should be noted that, at this time, Elizabeth I was not queen of Scotland. So, who we now know as the late Elizabeth II is actually Elizabeth I in Scotland, though Scotland tends to forget this.)

The Rose Garden of the Saughtonhall estate were established in the 17th century within the Walled Garden. The mansion house itself was converted into an asylum during the late 18th century where patients maintained the ornamental gardens as a practice in horticultural therapy.

The gardens were such a delight to experience! Edinburgh is otherwise dreich (a Scots word for overcast and dreary, with rain or maybe the haar), but once you enter the original gates, a palette of perfumed pinks delights your senses. Short parterres in curvy lines and crescent moons encircle roses of every pink, peach, yellow and crème. Winding curved paths guide you around parterres with no one direction. The feeling is almost like being in a maze—there is no straight path through. I entwined the parterres and their roses like a ballerina. Sitting in a bench in the middle of the gardens felt like sitting in a perfume bottle, though perhaps it should be the other way around. As I danced around the parterres, the bees did their own intimate dances. It was such a beautiful day.

The rose gardens is composed of two rooms that are nearly identical, though the second room contains a tropical glasshouse, which contains floral from the tropics, including a koi pond. By early-to-mid July, the roses were beginning their descent into decay. Come in late June, when Edinburgh begins its awakening to summer, which never lasts long in Scotland.

In the centre of the Rose Garden sits a Scottish sundial, which dates back to the 17th century. Well, at least part of it does. The dials and finial on the sundial are 17th century, but the rest is from the 19th century as an attempt to remake the original dial. (I’ll be writing another blog post on Scottish sundials at another moment because they were hugely influential in Scotland and Scottish dials are quite recognised internationally for their curiosities.)

Edinburgh is so wonderful because it is like living in a museum. You can walk through 17th-century closes and come out the other side to Regency era townhouses. But if you want to experience the past not in stone, but in flowers, come to the Saughton Rose Gardens. You will find yourself in a 17th-century garden.

Needless to say, after my visit I immediately went hunting for a bottle of rose perfume <3