Plodding down the rain-soaked Royal Mile in Edinburgh in August, we four drought-battered Texans could not have been happier. We toured the palace best known as the royal residence of Mary, Queen of Scots, and then the skies cleared just in time for Max and I to walk through the garden.
Holyroodhouse Palace is the official residence of the British monarch in Scotland, and the Queen spends one week a year here in early summer. (Like Queen Victoria, she prefers Balmoral for family vacations.) Built in the twelfth century by King David I of Scotland, the palace was where Elizabeth I had the advisors of her cousin and rival, Mary, Queen of Scots, murdered, as both a strategy and a warning. We saw the tiny royal bedroom where Mary was sitting at dinner when her men were dragged into the adjoining chamber and audibly slaughtered. Although Mary lived for another twenty years, Elizabeth managed to keep her from the throne. She essentially kidnapped Mary's son James and raised him as a Protestant as the price of letting the monarchy fall back into Stuart hands after her death. The green, northern darkness of the 10-hectare garden seemed a fit setting for this bloody history.
A privy garden has existed on this site since the 16th century, although the current design dates from the 19th, when the current carriage drive was installed to spare royal visitors the trip through the Canongate slums on their way to the palace. Sculptural features include a 17th-century John Mylne sundial and this undated piece of Burnsian whimsy:
The overcast day showed off the garden's subtle contrasts of color
and texture.
For a color slut like me, the garden was a little monochromatic, but it certainly had its dark charms, including lots of my favorite color, purple. As you complete the circuit, you come back around to the front of the palace from which you get a spectacular view of Arthur's Seat, the hill overlooking Edinburgh.
As I write here at the end of the driest 11-month period since Texas began keeping records in 1895, Holyrood Garden's damp northern beauty is a cooling memory.
Photos and narrative are both beautiful!
Posted by: Mike | 09/17/2011 at 03:37 PM
Thank you Mike. Glad we got some rain today....
Posted by: Lisa Moore | 09/17/2011 at 11:09 PM