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Having built Moray House in 1618 Mary, Countess of Home, continued to develop both her house and garden until her death in 1653 when the house passed to her son-in-law the Earl of Moray. Her garden was so famous it continued to be called Lady Home's Yard for many years after her death. The garden sloped southwards ending with a wall and gate abutting onto the South Back of the Canongate. It was laid out in the French style with a succession of terraces with handsome flights of steps between. In the first terrace stood the Queen Mary's Thorn tree which may have been planted in the 17th century. The second terrace had fruit trees.   [ Old Moray House intro page | Estates Map Page | School Homepage ]

 

"... as of so much elegance, and cultivated with so much care, as to vie with those of warmer countries, and perhaps even of England itself. And here you may see how much the art and industry of man may avail in supplying the defects of nature. Scarcely anyone would believe it possible to give so much beauty to a garden in such a frigid clime."

In Dr Pitcairn's play 'The Assembly' a scene is set in the garden of Moray House. According to Pitcairn, writing in 1692, the area of the garden around the Summer House seems to have been accessible to the public and provided a convenient rendezvous for romantic assignations. The play is quoted in Robert Chambers' 'Traditions of Edinburgh' (1846).

In the early 19th century the Cowan family commissioned a series of four prints from Thomas Shepherd (1829). These show how the Cowans had done much to restore Moray House as a fine family home and had enhanced the gardens. One print shows Queen Mary's Bower, another has Queen Mary's Thorn in the background and a third the Summer House with its conservatory. On the lowest terrace the family had created a water feature with a statue of a fisher boy. Charles Cowan remembers the fruit trees were French varieties.

Bruce - Home's 1856 bird's eye view (larger) print of the Normal and Sessional School also shows the original four terraces. Queen Mary's Thorn is a large specimen tree in the top terrace. The Summer House is shown as well as a gated arch to the South back. At this time (1854) French windows opened onto a turf bank sloping down to the garden with a laburnum tree.

Some of the garden was used by the School as 'field gardens' for agriculture instruction. In 1856 it is recorded that the School let part of the garden out as a market garden for an annual rent of £7. At the same time a bowling green was stipulated, but it is not known if this was undertaken. In 1909 WG Penney writes of the ornamental pool by the Summer House:

"At the time I speak of, from 1850 to 1862, when I left school, it was an open pool of stagnant water, and on the south edge of it the sculptured figure of the fisher boy stood, but the fishing rod which, I was told, he used to have in his hand, had long since disappeared. The figure it seems to me, was cut from hard grey granite, but it was a very much battered figure for all that."

The stone archway which stands on the walk below the Nursery School is not in its original position. It is probably reconstructed from the arch that once connected Moray House garden with the South Back of the Canongate.

From 1847 onwards Moray House's famous garden gradually disappeared as the Training College expanded. First there was the initial extension to the original buildings shown in the 1856 print. Then 1000 square yards was granted for the building of the Moray Free Church on the southern frontage. This was followed in 1871 by the erection of the 'New Building' - an austere set of classrooms running east-to-west between the present Nursery School and Paterson's Land. By the end of the 19th century there was little evidence that this had once contained a bowling green, extensive orchards, a vegetable garden or the celebrated Queen Mary's Thorn. The area was tar macadamed in 1931 becoming the playground of the Demonstration School. Apart from the war when the area contained air raid shelters it remained a playground until the School closed in 1968. Subsequently it has become a car park for the College.

Material compiled & edited in 2002 by David Starsmeare and Hugh Perfect, Honorary Archivist, Moray House Archive
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