SCOTTISH GARDENS 



happened in many another instance, that both pur- 

 poses were best secured on the same site. 



The central tower of Kelburne Castle is dated 

 1581. It may have been built probably was so 

 on the site of an earlier keep but it was not many 

 years old when Timothy Pont, to whom we owe such 

 an intimate knowledge of Scottish topography before 

 the union of the Crowns, described it in the following 

 words. 



" Kelburne Castell, a goodly building veill planted, hauing 

 werey beutiful orchards and gardens and in one of them a 

 spatious Rome adorned with a chrystalin fontane cutte all out 

 of the living rocke. It belongs heretably to Johne Boll [Boyle] 

 Laird thereof." 



The gardens remain, enriched with the dignity 

 that only centuries can confer; but the " spatious 

 Rome [? room] " where is it ? Miss Wilson's draw- 

 ing shows a circular stone basin, wherein stands, 

 not a fountain, but a wonderful sundial, wrought, 

 apparently, by the same hand as one dated 1707 

 which stands near the house. The surmise of the 

 present "Boll" to wit, David, seventh Earl of 

 Glasgow is that when David, the first Earl, was 

 adding to the house and had the dated sundial 

 erected there, he was so well pleased with it that 

 he had a second one made and substituted it for 

 the "chrystalin fontane/' Be that as it may, one 

 has no reason to complain of the result, so admirably 

 does this old dial, stained and mellowed by the time 

 which it was set there to measure, harmonise with 



162 



