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MHG39636 - Tarbat House Designed Landscape - Kilmuir Easter

Summary

Tarbat House Designed Landscape walled garden - Kilmuir Easter

Type and Period (1)

Protected Status

Full Description

Tarbat House gardens and grounds were included in the Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes of Scotland in 2003.

Designed landscape around Tarbat House on national register. Large walled garden on S side of terrace "The Avenue" that would have held earlier castle sites at E end. Mound marked as Pipers Knowe off this terrace to E marked on May Map of 1755 & 1st ed OS maps. Icehouse in this location. Landscape has deteriorated quite badly, but plans for improvement under SFGS - HAW 06/2005

Following reassessment in 2016, Tarbat House was removed from the Inventory.

The site was visited by the North of Scotland Archaeological Society on 3rd May 2019. Research and evaluation by Roland Spencer-Jones;

Sir George Mackenzie, 3rd Earl Cromartie and grandson of the George Mackenzie who built New Tarbat, took the Jacobite side in the ’45, was captured at Dunrobin on the eve of Culloden, and was subsequently imprisoned then exiled in England. His estate of Cromartie was forfeited. However, after his own death in 1766, it was returned to his son, Lord John Macleod, in 1784. Almost immediately, Lord John started building a new house, called Tarbat House. This new house lies 250m west of the old New Tarbat House, on the same raised beach, with formal gardens and a walled vegetable and fruit garden to the south. The locally quarried sandstone from the old House was used in the construction of the new. In front of the house there is a grass and shrub covered platform, representing the previous formal gardens. A track leads through this, down and to the east to the extensive walled garden.

References:
• Monica Clough: Two Houses. Aberdeen University Press 1990
• Eric Richards & Monica Clough, Cromartie: Highland Life 1650-1914. Aberdeen University Press 1989

Ordnance Survey Mastermap <1>

1st Edition OS 6" <2>

Sources/Archives (2)

Map

Location

Grid reference	Centred NH 7724 7362 (189m by 142m) (2 map features)
Map sheet	NH77SE
Geographical Area	ROSS AND CROMARTY
Civil Parish	KILMUIR EASTER

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