Drummond Castle
Drummond Castle is one of Scotland's most celebrated historic strongholds, situated in Perthshire near the village of Muthill, roughly four miles south of Crieff. While the castle itself is a private residence and not open to the public, it is internationally renowned for the extraordinary formal gardens that surround it, widely considered among the finest examples of terraced gardens in all of Europe. The combination of medieval fortress, Jacobean layout, and Victorian restoration makes Drummond Castle Gardens a deeply layered destination where centuries of horticultural ambition and aristocratic history are visible in a single sweeping view from the castle's elevated terrace.
The castle was founded in the late fifteenth century by John Drummond, the first Lord Drummond, around 1491. The Drummond family had long been powerful players in Scottish political life, with close ties to the royal court. Mary of Guise, mother of Mary Queen of Scots, visited the estate, and the castle's associations with Stuart loyalty would later prove fateful. During the Wars of the Three Kingdoms in the seventeenth century, Oliver Cromwell's forces besieged and severely damaged the castle in retaliation for its royalist allegiances. Later, on the eve of the Jacobite rising of 1715, the then-Duchess of Perth ordered the castle's wells to be choked with rubble and its buildings deliberately dismantled to prevent the structure from being garrisoned by Hanoverian troops — a drastic act of denial that left the fortification in prolonged ruin.
The gardens themselves have an equally layered past. They were initially laid out in the early seventeenth century by John Drummond, the second Earl of Perth, in a grand formal style. The centrepiece of the garden is a remarkable ancient sundial crafted in 1630 by John Mylne, Master Mason to King Charles I. This multi-faced obelisk sundial sits at the intersection of the garden's main axes and is capable of telling the time in every European capital simultaneously — a feat of mathematical ingenuity that still draws admirers today. The sundial functions as the symbolic heart of the entire design, with the garden's geometry radiating outward from it like spokes from a hub.
The gardens were substantially restored and expanded during the nineteenth century, largely under the direction of Lewis Drummond and with the involvement of Queen Victoria's visit in 1842, which spurred considerable improvements to the estate in anticipation of the royal stay. The formal parterre below the castle is laid out in the form of the St Andrew's Cross, combining box hedging, coloured gravels, yew topiary, and specimen trees to produce an almost architectural effect when viewed from above. The scale is staggering — the gardens stretch across several acres of terraced ground, with the eye drawn down through disciplined geometry toward the wooded Perthshire countryside beyond.
Standing on the upper terrace and looking down into the parterre is one of the more arresting visual experiences in Scottish heritage tourism. The view is formal yet alive, the low hedges and coloured gravel patterns contrasting with the surrounding wildness of hills and timber. In spring, flowering bulbs and early colour bring the geometric shapes into vivid relief, while summer fills the garden with herbaceous borders, roses, and the dark drama of mature yews clipped into precise forms. In autumn the setting takes on a melancholy grandeur, the surrounding beech and oak woodland turning amber and rust around the estate's edges. The air at Drummond often carries the faint coolness of elevation and the subtle scent of box hedging warmed in afternoon sun.
The surrounding area is quintessential Perthshire — gentle drumlins and wider straths giving way to the southern fringe of the Highland landscape. Crieff itself is a market town of considerable character, with independent shops and the famous Crieff Hydro hotel and spa nearby. The landscape between Drummond and Crieff along the A822 passes through some handsome farmland, and the ruins of Muthill's old collegiate church are close by and worth visiting. Strath Earn stretches to the east, and the Sma' Glen — a narrow glacial valley of wild beauty — lies just north of Crieff, making the area productive ground for a longer rural visit.
The gardens are open to the public from May through October, typically daily during the season, though exact opening times vary year to year and visitors are strongly advised to check in advance. Entry is charged, with concessions available. The approach to the castle is made through a long and impressive lime avenue, arriving at a courtyard before the gardens themselves open out below. There is a small gift shop and facilities on site. The castle itself remains inhabited by the Grimsthorpe and Drummond Castle Trust and is not accessible as part of a visit, though its towers loom handsomely above the terraces throughout the experience.
One of the more unusual footnotes in Drummond's story is its appearance in popular culture: scenes for the 2014 television series Outlander were filmed in the castle gardens, representing the gardens of Versailles, which speaks to both the scale and formal grandeur of the grounds. The estate also contains some remarkable specimen trees, including copper beeches and ancient yews whose age rival the garden's oldest documented history. The long avenue of limes that leads to the castle has a cathedral-like quality, especially in summer when the canopy closes overhead, creating a natural procession worthy of the theatrical splendour that awaits at the end.