Italian in feeling, and yet happily wedding with the Scottish mansion of
two and a half centuries ago, and forming, with the house and park-land,
one of the most perfect examples of a country gentleman’s place. All of
it is pleasant and beautiful, home-like and humanly sympathetic; the
size is moderate--there is nothing oppressively grand.
More than once already in these pages attention has been drawn to the
danger of letting good stone-work become overgrown with rank creepers.
At Balcaskie this is evidently carefully regulated. The wall-spaces
between the great buttresses, and the buttresses themselves, are
sufficiently clothed but never smothered with the wall-loving and
climbing plants. The right relation of masonry and vegetation is
carefully observed; each graces and dignifies the other; the balance is
perfect.
The lowest level is given to the kitchen garden. It is not put out of
the way, but forms part of the whole scheme. It is reached by a single
flight of handsome balustraded stone steps.
Balcaskie occurs as a place-name early in the thirteenth century. From
1350 to 1615 it was owned by a family named Strang, afterwards by the
Moncrieffs, till 1665. It is not known whether any portion of the
present house and garden belonged to these earlier dates, but it is
probable that the designer of both was Sir William Bruce, one of the
best architects of the time of Charles II., and an owner of Balcaskie
for twenty years.