Galloway House & Gardens
The area around Whithorn has at least seven gardens larger than 1acre and three of these can be visited.
Galloway House Gardens at Garlieston is open from March to October. The historic gardens were created in 1740 by Lord Garlies, the eldest son of the 5th Earl of Galloway. The 4.5 acre walled garden is now used for soft fruit production and the surrounding woodland still contains many specimen trees including a rare example of Davidia - the handkerchief tree.
Woodfall Gardens at Glasserton is historiclally linked with Galloway House. Originally known as Glasserton House Gardens, they were laid out by Kieth Stewart, the sixth son of the 6th Earl of Galloway between 1767 and 1790 as part of a plan to create a parkland and elegant farm buildings around the house. The garden walls, comprising an estimated 1.5 million hand-made bricks enclose an area of about 3 acres. The special atmosphere of Woodfall Gardens can be enjoyed by visitors on Sunday afternoons and Thursdays from May to September.
Monreith House Gardens just outside the village of Monreith, today consist of woodland and more formal gardens, clustering round the White Loch of Myrton. Despite some neglect in the twentieth century they are remarkable for containing traces od mediaeval, eighteenth century and nineteenth century gardens. Sir Herbert Maxwell was in correspondence with the leading plant hunters and plantsmen of his day and wrote extensively on plants and trees as well as being a noted flower painter.
The Cache
To find the cache a visit to Garlieston will be necessary. The cache is located at the public (pay and display) car park so if you intend to make a tour of the gardens or walk to the other caches close by a fee of £3 will be needed. The car park is used mainly by dog walkers and can be busy especially on weekends so please be discreet in finding and replacing the cache. You might want to pay particular attention to the notice board.
There are no swaps in this one, the contents are in line with the theme so please do not remove them.
The A to Z of the Machars is a project by team Geoscouts We aim to hide a new cache each week over the coming weeks and months to introduce visitors to the treasures of this amazing peninsular. We hope that you enjoy finding them as much as we enjoyed creating them. There's never a dull day here (even when it rains)