Tuesday 8 October 2013

Edzell Banqueting House


In the south east corner of the garden at Edzell, and projecting behind it is a small garden or banqueting house. This delightful wee gazebo imitates  in miniature a Scottish domestic house of the early seventeenth century, with  its twisted chimneys, its crow stepped gables and decorations above the windows , and its turnpike stair housed in a circular tower with a turret on top.



The decorative scheme of the garden is carried across the internal facade of the house. Over the window on the first floor on the garden side are Sir David's  monogram, SDL.




There are two rooms on the ground floor, the one on the garden side ribbed and vaulted with a stone bench running around the wall.




The upper room has a closet leading off in the turret, and a fireplace at the other end. Beneath the windows are small holes said to be gunloops. On display in this room is a, precious, carved wooden panel that came from the castle.


At the south west corner of the garden there had been at one time a bathhouse. An unprecedented luxury for early seventeenth century Scotland.

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