Scotney Castle Kent
Scotney Castle in the Kent Weald is one of the most romantically picturesque country house gardens in England, a mid-nineteenth-century landscape garden designed by Edward Hussey around the ruins of his medieval moated castle that created one of the finest examples of the Picturesque aesthetic in British gardening, using the old castle as a deliberate eyecatcher and focal point in a composition of exceptional beauty. The National Trust manages the estate and the combination of the old castle ruin, the new house above it and the garden they were designed to complement makes Scotney one of the most rewarding and most distinctive garden visits in the southeast. The garden was created between 1837 and 1843 when Edward Hussey demolished much of the old house within the moated castle enclosure in order to provide picturesque ruins as the centrepiece of his new landscape garden. The decision to demolish a perfectly functional building to create ruins illustrates the strength of the Picturesque aesthetic in the early Victorian period, and the resulting composition of tower, moat, reflected water and richly planted garden slopes fulfilled Hussey's vision completely. The garden slopes above the castle are planted with an exceptional collection of rhododendrons, azaleas and other acid-loving shrubs that provide spectacular colour in spring. The new house built above the garden by Hussey is a handsome Victorian mansion by the architect Anthony Salvin that provides the domestic anchor for the designed landscape below. The estate extends through woodlands and farmland in the characteristic Weald landscape of Kent and the walking through the estate provides pleasant countryside of great charm. The castle ruins reflected in the still moat water on a fine day provide one of the most photographed garden compositions in England.