by Lesley Cumming
SGLH members gathered near Comrie in Highland Perthshire on 6th June 2026 for a visit led by Christopher Dingwall and Jim Jermyn to the gardens at Dunira House, where they were welcomed by property manager and head gardener Jamie Thomson on behalf of the owners Stuart and Amy Grant.
Dunira House is a modern five-bedroom mansion designed by Adam Architects and Denholm Partnership Architects, built on the site of an earlier house which was burnt to the ground in 1947. The old house, which had been built for Sir David Dundas by the Victorian architect William Burn, stood on a series of artificial terraces on the north side of Strathearn. It was this house which, with its surrounding estate, was sold in 1919 to wealthy Glasgow industrialist William Gilchrist Macbeth, who employed the celebrated English landscape architect Thomas Mawson (1861-1933) to remodel and extend the garden.
Mawson began by replacing what he described as a series of ‘uninteresting grass slopes’ with broad terraces edged by stone balustrades. Our tour began by visiting the southern terraces which, with the mansion house, enjoy a panoramic view over the well-wooded vale of Strathearn, with its spectacular backdrop of heather-covered hills. The southern view is framed by formal avenue planting, leading the eye to a large urn, beyond which is a ha-ha and fence designed to keep deer and beavers from getting into the garden. To the east is a new tennis court backed by some fine specimen trees many of which date from the 19th century.
Members then followed a series of steps leading down the slope to the west of the house, where a narrow canal flanked by a rose garden runs from a wall-fountain towards a round pond with fountain. Surrounding flower borders included a variety of recently planted meconopsis and primulas. Beyond the pond is the Allt nan Eoin, a natural burn landscaped by the well-known rock garden specialists James Pulham & Son into a series of cascades, basins and a small swimming pool covering nearly a quarter of a mile. The burn leads down to an irregularly shaped curling pond, surrounded by and reflecting a variety of willows and maples.
On a steep slope overlooking the curling pond is an extensive rock garden created by James Pulham & Son using natural rock, through which runs a small rivulet edged with artificial Pulhamite stone – yet to be restored. The rock garden is in the process of being replanted by Jim Jermyn, formerly Head Gardener with the NTS at Branklyn in Perth. Beyond the rock garden is an elegant stone-built and pantiled tea-house where SGLH members were able to enjoy a picnic lunch. Here we were also able to examine a selection of photographs, plans and books which Christopher had kindly brought along. We then had another hour or so to explore the garden at leisure before thanking Christopher, Jim and Jamie for what was a fascinating visit and heading home.
It is worth noting that, following the disastrous fire of 1947, the house lay in ruins, and the garden, which had been stripped of much of its ornamental stonework, lay abandoned and overgrown for half a century. A partial restoration of the garden organised by Channel 4 as part of a series of programmes on ‘Lost Gardens’ c.2000 had little impact. It was only with the purchase of the site by Stuart and Amy Grant in 2017 that work was able to begin on the building of the new mansion house, and the faithful re-creation of Thomas Mawson’s spectacular garden layout, based on plans and photographs. It is remarkable to see how much has been achieved in just under ten years. The garden will surely become even more spectacular as the new planting begins to mature. The garden, which is not open to the public, is included in Historic Environment Scotland’s online Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes in Scotland.