Эдцелл: Руины замка и обнесенный стеной сад в Шотландии

Castle ruin and walled garden in UK

Edzell Castle is a ruined 16th century castle, with an early 17th century walled garden. It is located close to Edzell, and is around 5 mile (8 km) north of Brechin, in Angus, Scotland. Edzell Castle was begun around 1520 by David Lindsay, 9th Earl of Crawford, and expanded by his son, Sir David Lindsay, Lord Edzell, who also laid out the garden in 1604. The castle saw little military action, and was, in its design, construction and use, more of a country house than a defensive structure. It was briefly occupied by English troops during Oliver Cromwell's invasion of Scotland in 1651. In 1715 it was sold by the Lindsay family, and eventually came into the ownership of the Earl of Dalhousie. It was given into state care in the 1930s, and is now a visitor attraction run by Historic Environment Scotland (open all year; entrance charge). The castle consists of the original tower house and building ranges around a courtyard. The adjacent Renaissance walled garden, incorporating intricate relief carvings, is unique in Scotland. It was replanted in the 1930s, and is considered to have links to esoteric traditions, including Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry.

The first castle at Edzell was a timber motte and bailey structure, built to guard the mouth of Glenesk, a strategic pass leading north into the Highlands. The motte, or mound, is still visible south west of the present castle, and dates from the 12th century. It was the seat of the Abbott, or Abbe, family, and was the centre of the now vanished original village of Edzell. The Abbotts were succeeded as lords of Edzell by the Stirlings of Glenesk, and the Stirlings in turn by the Lindsays. In 1358, Sir Alexander de Lindsay, third son of David Lindsay of Crawford, married the Stirling heiress, Katherine Stirling. Alexander's son, David, was created Earl of Crawford in 1398. Edzell became the property of a junior branch of the Lindsay family descended from the 3rd Earl, and in 1513 it was inherited by David Lindsay (d. 1558). Around 1520, David Lindsay decided to abandon the original castle, and built a tower house and barmkin, or courtyard, in a more sheltered location nearby. The selection of a site overlooked by higher ground to the north suggests that defence was not the primary concern. David became the Earl of Crawford in 1542, on the death of his cousin the 8th Earl, who had disinherited his own son Alexander, the "Wicked Master". He proceeded to extend the simple tower house, in around 1550, by the addition of a large west range, incorporating a new entrance gate and hall. Lord Crawford also built Invermark Castle, 12 mile (19 km) north of Edzell, possibly as a hunting lodge, at around the same time. Mary, Queen of Scots, came to Edzell on 25 August 1562. A plan to meet Elizabeth I in England had been abandoned, and she was making a progress to Aberdeen and Inverness.

David Lindsay, the 9th Earl's son, was educated in Paris and Cambridge, and travelled in continental Europe. His father had nominated the son of Alexander, the Wicked Master, as heir to the earldom, returning the title to the senior line of the family, and thus Lindsay did not succeed to the earldom on his father's death. However, he was knighted in 1581, became a Lord of Session (a senior judge), taking the title Lord Edzell, in 1593, and in 1598 was appointed to the Privy Council. A Renaissance Man, he undertook improvements to his estates, including mining and woodland planting. Two German prospectors from Nuremberg, Bernard Fechtenburg and Hans Ziegler, were invited to search for precious metals around Edzell. In August 1562, David Lindsay received Mary, Queen of Scots, at Edzell. The Queen was on a Royal progress, with the aim of subduing the rebellious George Gordon, 5th Earl of Huntly, and spent two nights at Edzell. During her stay, she convened a meeting of the Privy Council, attended by the nobility of Scotland. Her son, King James VI, visited Edzell twice; on 28 June 1580, and in August 1589. On 5 August 1589 the Earl of Erroll came to James VI at Edzell and submitted to his mercy, while accusing the 6th Earl of Huntly of further treasons. The next day the news arrived at Edzell that Henry III of France had been assassinated at Saint Cloud by a Dominican friar, Jacques Clément. Sir David further extended the castle in the late 16th century, with the addition of a large north range with round corner towers. He laid out the garden in 1604, with symbols of England, Scotland and Ireland, to celebrate the Union of the Crowns of the previous year, when James VI acceded to the English throne on the death of his cousin, Elizabeth I. Sir David died in 1610, heavily in debt as a result of fines handed down for the unruly conduct of his son, and with both the garden and the north range incomplete.

Edzell was not affected by the campaigns of the Royalist Marquess of Montrose in the 1640s, although other properties of the Covenanting Presbyterian David Lindsay (son of Sir David), were attacked. During the Third English Civil War, Oliver Cromwell invaded Scotland and, in September 1651, his troops took Edzell, and were stationed there for one month. By the time of the Presbyterian settlement of 1689, the Lord of Edzell, David's son John Lindsay, had switched allegiances from Presbyterianism to Episcopalianism. Along with the parish minister, he was barred from the parish church, and Episcopal services were held in the great hall at Edzell. The castle began to decline around the time of the 1715 Jacobite rising. The last Lindsay lord of Edzell, another David, was a Jacobite, a supporter of the exiled James Stuart, the "Old Pretender". Faced with mounting family debts, David sold the castle to the 4th Earl of Panmure, a fellow Jacobite, for £192,502 Scots, equivalent to £16,042 sterling. Lord Panmure, however, forfeited his lands and property for taking part in the failed rebellion. Edzell was sold, by the Crown, to the York Buildings Company, a London waterworks company which had branched into the buying and selling of forfeited property. They proceeded to "asset strip" the property.

The castle remained the property of the earls of Dalhousie, who appointed a caretaker from the 1870s, and built a cottage for him in 1901, which is now in use as a visitor centre. In 1932, the walled garden passed into state care, followed by the rest of the castle in 1935. The castle and garden are currently maintained by Historic Environment Scotland and are open to the public year round. The motte and castle are protected as Scheduled Ancient Monuments, and the garden is included in the Inventory of Historic Gardens and Designed Landscapes, the national listing of significant gardens. The caretaker's house is a Category B listed building.

The motte, still known as Castlehillock, is the only remainder of the first Edzell Castle. It lies 300m south west of the later castle, by a bend in the West Water, and comprises a low, partially natural mound. The motte is aligned north west to south east, and is around long by across at its broadest point, and around high. An outer bailey, or courtyard, up to across formerly surrounded the motte, and was bordered by a deep ditch.

The castle comprises the early 16th century tower house, the slightly later west range, and the late 16th century north range. Other buildings to the east and south have now vanished. The red sandstone walls were originally harled. The four storey tower house was named the Stirling Tower after the original lords of Edzell, the Stirlings of Glenesk, although it is not old enough to have been built by them. It is high, and measures by on plan. The walls are over thick at the basement, narrowing to on the first floor. The tower house is entered from the north, via a door protected by "inverted keyhole" shaped gun holes. A slot adjacent to the door would have held a draw bar, to reinforce the entry, and several mason's marks remain around the door. The hall occupies the first floor, above two vaulted cellars. Marks in the wall show the position of a minstrels' gallery and a timber screen, which concealed a serving area accessed via a narrow stair from the cellar. The broad main spiral stair led up to three further storeys of private chambers, before reaching a cap house, a small rooftop chamber giving access to a parapet walk. The four corners of the tower have bartizans, or open turrets, and similar projections occur halfway along each wall. The parapet is supported on projecting stones, or corbels, arranged in a pattern of two tiers which alternate, rendering the lower tier purely decorative. Edzell represents an early occurrence of this style, known as chequered corbelling, which became more widespread later in the 16th century.

To complement the garden, a bath house and summer house were constructed at the corners of the garden furthest from the castle. The bath house is ruined, but the two storey summer house survives intact. It comprises a groin vaulted lower room, with an upper chamber, containing the only surviving example of the castle's carved oak wall panelling. Charles McKean attributes the design and construction of the garden buildings to Thomas Leiper, an Aberdeenshire stonemason, based on the elaborately decorated gun holes in the summer house. The planting was recreated in the 1930s. No original plan of the renaissance garden survives, although records show fruit was grown in the 17th century.

The symbolism of the garden, particularly of the carvings, as well as the repetition of sevens and threes, has inspired many interpretations. The engravings upon which the carvings are based were commonplace in Scotland at the time, and were frequently used in the art of memory, a mnemonic memory technique associated with Freemasonry. The art of memory had become a feature throughout Scottish culture, from the court of Queen Anne, Danish consort of James VI, to the lodges of operative stonemasons. The potential influence of Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe's symbolic garden at Uraniborg, which was visited by James IV of Scotland in 1590, has also been noted. Sir David Lindsay would have been well aware of the symbolic allusions of the carvings. In correspondence with his brother, Lord Menmuir, he discusses the relationship of the planets to the metals, which he had employed Hans Ziegler to search for on his land. Sir David's nephew, David Lindsay, 1st Lord Balcarres, was noted for his interest in alchemy and the Rosicrucians. Historian Adam McLean has suggested that the garden is associated with the Rosicrucians, and "should be seen as an early 17th century Mystery Temple". McLean describes the garden as a place of instruction, and remarks that the whole structure is reminiscent of "Eliphas Levi's description of the ancient Tarot of the Egyptians carved into the walls of their initiation temples, to which the candidate was taken to contemplate the sequence of the symbols". He backs up this suggestion with the observation that the Mantegna Tarocchi, a set of 15th century engravings formerly thought to be a tarocchi or tarot deck, includes all these images amongst its symbols.