Amisfield Gardens, Hopetoun Memorial & horse statues

 

Amisfield Gardens

The mansion house has disappeared, but the walled gardens are not just still there, but have become community gardens and are lovingly tended and looked after by volunteers. They are near the small town of Haddington in East Lothian, Scotland. At each corner of the gardens, there’s a grand portal complete with porch supported by pillars. 

 

It’s one of those hot days that appeared suddenly as if spring has been overlooked and with the disappearance of winter, summer has usurped spring’s rightful place. Of course plants and trees still follow the usual sequence of growth but us humans sit and bask in the warmth, on a bench with a shaped wall around it, for shelter.

 

This will change and winter will blusteringly sweep back, even scattering snow on hills, and spring will make a re-appearance but for now, we drink coffee from our flasks and munch on grapes, cheese and oatcakes and remark how wonderful the sunshine is.

I’m curious about Amisfield House, which the gardens were originally attached to. The internet shows old photographs of what it looked like. The last time it was inhabited, it was used as a billet for soldiers in World War I. 

 

(Photo credit  where you can see more images) I wonder if it was simply considered by its then owners as a liability, too much work to restore after being a soldiers’ billet, too much upkeep in general? I still find it strange that such a grand old house should have been demolished, and wonder what the story behind it might be. (It is now the site of a golf club & the grounds a golf course.)

We then drive to the Hopetoun Memorial, also near Haddington. This is a tower structure, built in 1824 (95 feet/29 m tall) and the plaque says it was built in memory of the ‘great and good’ fourth Earl of Hopetoun, by his ‘affectionate and grateful tenantry’.

 

But this too seems mysterious to me. Why was he considered such a ‘great and good’ landlord, and who actually did the building? And who paid for it? This thin cylindrical structure of pinkish stone sits at the top of the wooded Byres Hill. Walking up the path through the woods we hear a loud but invisible woodpecker trilling and tap tapping at some dead branches, an intermittent drilling sound that echoes through the wood. Trees and gorse bushes thin out as we approach the tower.

The viewing platform at the top is reached by climbing the inside spiral staircase, all 132 steps of it.

 

As the picture shows, the stone steps became worn and have been patched and levelled with cement. That has certainly made them easier to climb but the ascent is still tricky. There are a few narrow slits in the tower structure which form ledges, as the stone walls are quite thick. These ledges have provided nesting areas for birds, and are packed with sticks from their old nests, suggesting they were quite large birds. Many sticks from these nest-piles have scattered inside onto the steps, making them uneven underfoot. So you have to step very carefully. This is made worse by the fact that only a tiny amount of light penetrates these slits and in between those dimly lit areas the staircase is in total darkness so you cannot see anything at all and have no idea what your feet may encounter on the next step, and exactly what it is that crunches underfoot. The best way to negotiate the spiral steps I found, especially when coming down, was to place one hand on either side of the wall, as it was narrow enough to do that. 

 

                                                      View of steps from the top
 

The viewing platform gives superb views over the surrounding countryside, despite the day being slightly misty. 

 
 

pointy Berwick Law in the distance

 

There is a statue, I discover from internet search, of this Fourth Earl in front of the Royal Bank of Scotland, St Andrews Square, Edinburgh. I’m very familiar with this statue of a man and his horse, but had never really thought about who he was. 

 

Or why he was dressed in a Roman-style toga, but perhaps that was fashionable at the time. It was erected, I now discover from a recent information plaque, ‘in 1824 by public subscription from citizens of Edinburgh. Hopetoun was a Member of Parliament and career soldier. He was considered a hero of the Napoleonic Wars.’ But he also it turns out, ‘had family ties to the exploitation of enslaved people in the West Indies. …. His wife Louisa was a daughter of John Wedderburn, one of Jamaica’s biggest slave plantation owners.’ Other family ties were through his sister’s marriage to the now infamous Henry Dundas, Lord Melville, whose statue is a stone’s throw away from this one, atop a ridiculously tall plinth in St Andrew’s Square Gardens.

Again, ignorance of history meant that many Edinburgh citizens myself included knew nothing of these figures from the past who were memorialized in stone. It was only thanks to hearing talks given by Sir Geoff Palmer  and later reading his book on this country’s involvement with slavery The Enlightenment Abolished, that I found out about these people. Knowledge of involvement in slavery is becoming much more widespread these days, with discussion around the removal of statues. (Sir Geoff says: ‘Don’t take down statues – take down racism’.) Or at least, as in the case of the Fourth Earl of Hopetoun, adding plaques describing their links and involvement.

I’m all for statues or sculptures of horses though.

                                            Statue at east end of Princes Street, Edinburgh

Most blog posts involve some research but this one has led me into various alleyways, not so much blind as obscured by the mists of time and memory. Searching sometimes for old photos of sculptures, taken in which year? I could not find the photos I was looking for, which is why I have only posted this one (a postcard of the sculpture). 

 

Sculpture 'Horse & Rider' by Eoghan Bridge

I really like Eoghan Bridge’s horse sculptures,  and I was very tempted to buy this small one which I saw in a gallery in the late 1990s. It cost almost exactly the same as my pay cheque for a month which I had just received. So yes I could have bought it but would have had nothing to live on for the next month. Still, I have the postcard – fire damaged, but it survived.