[98600] Pitmedden House : Museum of Farming Life

Pitmedden House & Gardens, Aberdeenshire.

The National Trust for Scotland.

 

The Trust accepted the property from Major James Keith in 1952 and recreated the parterres under the direction of Dr JS Richardson in 1956-58.

 

The Great Garden dates back to 1675 when it was originally laid out by Sir Alexander Seton, a retired Court of Session judge in the reign of James VII/II. His head gardener had designed gardens at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh and was similarly influenced by the French Palace of Versailles. In the 1950s Pitmedden was gifted to the Trust who re-created the garden based on 17th-century plans after it was ploughed up to grow vegetables during the Second World War and used as a kitchen garden for over 100 years.

 

This is the Museum of Farming Life created within the former Laundry.

Early-mid C19.

C listed.

 

The Museum of Farming Life displays a collection of 19th and 20th century farming implements presented to the Trust in 1977 by the trustees of William Cook of Little Meldrum, Tarves, as well as information on Major James Keith, chairman of the North of Scotland College of Agriculture, who was a keen agricultural improver. Together with other family members, James Keith took over a number of farms in Norfolk during the 1930s and 1940s, finally owning in excess of 10,000 acres. He was the author, in 1954, of a successful publication, Fifty Years of Farming.

 

 

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