Dunninald House and Garden

An early nineteenth century mansion house which is still a family home, set in a eighteenth century planned landscape with a superb walled garden. The house is best known for its architectural merit.

History

Dunninald has a history of at least a thousand years. The name is derived from the gaelic, dun a castle and ard, a high place. The first Dunninald was on the cliff high above the North Sea, so the name is a good description of the original site. The origin of its colloquial name, Black Jack, is lost.

A second house was built about 1590, to replace the old tower fortalice. This was some four hundred yards inland and was at the foot of the present-day beech avenue, next to the walled garden.

By 1819 the second house was some 230 years old and the new owner, Peter Arkley, commissioned James Gillespie Graham to built a new house. This was designed in the gothic revival style and was completed in 1824.

The house has hardly been altered since then which is the main reason why it is held in such high regard. The house has long been associated with the sea, with the salmon fishing and the old lime kiln at the Boddin promontory.

From the Boddin can be seen the broad sweep of Lunan Bay, with the ruins of Red Castle at its centre, and the Bell Rock Lighthouse, 15 miles out to sea.

In the days of Black Jack, salmon were caught in traps on the rocks below the castle. Now bag-nets may be seen in the water between the months of June and August.

Gardens

Dunninald is best known for its gardens.  The wild garden was laid out on a grid pattern in the early 18th century. The centrepiece is the magnificent beech avenue which was part of the landscaping around the Second Dunninald.  It is shown on General Roy's map of 1750.   The new house, the Third Dunninald, is at one end of the beech avenue.  

At the other is the walled garden, first created around 1740 and extended with stone from the Second Dunninald a century later.  Numerous paths intersect the beech avenue, providing the visitor with views of specimen trees, shrubs and woodland flowers in season.

The walled garden has a curved North wall which gives the visitor a view of colourful borders and fruit trees.  The garden provides a supply of vegetables, fruit and flowers throughout the year and there is an 18th century greenhouse.  There are many interesting features, including "Union" gates, made by James Ross Brown in Montrose in 1906 of wrought iron, with thistles, shamrocks, roses and dragons. 

The management plan for the wild garden aims to restore the landscape to its 18th century planned form.  Thomas White prepared a wildly ambitious plan when he visited in 1789.  There are several recognisable present-day features on White's plan, including a mound at one end of the avenue, which has sited a water tank since 1898.  Visitors may speculate on the original purpose of the mysterious mound; perhaps it was one of a line of signal beacons. Its position in a treeless landscape could have offered line of sight to landmarks in Fife, East Lothian, Dundee and Aberdeenshire.