Scotland, Wales & Ireland Japanese style gardens open to the public
The UK has a number of publicly accessible Japanese style gardens shown in the listing below.
It includes some of historic interest and value as well as very recently constructed gardens. The gardens vary greatly in both size and standard. Many of the gardens are sited in public spaces or parks and some unfortunately have been subject to damage and lack of maintenance.
Appreciation of these gardens is to a large extent subjective and this particular selection is not intended to identify ‘the best’ gardens, merely to reflect the wide range of gardens and their different styles that are open to the public.
To add further detail to each garden, if known the date of construction, date of any restorations and brief descriptions are also given.
Images of the gardens may not be recent and have been supplied by JGS members unless otherwise stated.
Click on the name of the garden for website and when appears grey for more information and pictures if available.
National Botanic Garden of Wales Japanese Garden
Located in the National Botanic Garden of Wales. Constructed in 2001, the garden started life as a Show Garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, winning a Gold medal and coveted ‘Best in Show’ for its designer, Professor Masao Fukuhara. By 2017 renovation work was needed. The Japanese Garden Society (JGS) led a restoration programme, part-funded by the Japanese government. Repairs to the building, wall, paths and bamboo fence, extensive pruning and replanting were completed in spring, 2019.
See JGS restorations page for more information.
Stobo Japanese water garden
This is a mature, secluded woodland garden was created in the grounds of Stobo Castle by the owner Hylton Philipson, a celebrated cricketer who had visited Japan, began to create a Japanese-style garden in about 1910. There is no record of a Japanese designer. The burn was dammed, making an ornamental lake which feeds a spectacular waterfall and the large garden, of about 4 acres, is planted with many Japanese species of trees. The tranquillity of the water in the garden begins with the drama of the waterfall progressing through a cascade of ponds, punctuated along the way by stepping stones and bridges. The garden was brought to life when Japanese style was the height of fashion – hence its cherry trees, maples, and iconic Japanese stone lanterns, ‘tea house’ and humpback bridge – though some of the original authentic design features have been overgrown..
The azaleas and rhododendrons provide a spectacular display in May and June. Calming strolls can be enjoyed with dappled summer sunlight radiating through the trees. Autumn stimulates all senses with the unmistakable scent of burnt sugar from the katsura tree and a riot of stunning reds and yellows. The garden in winter, occasionally dressed in white, brings its own serenity.
The Japanese Water Garden is no longer in the grounds of Stobo Castle which became a health spa (www.stobocastle.co.uk), but is now part of the Stobo Home Farm. It is open to the public on specific days through the Scotland Gardens Scheme (see www.scotlandsgardens.org for further details). Visitors are advised to wear appropriate footwear. There is limited disabled access due to the gravel paths and steps.
Cowden
Description:
The garden at Cowden was built by Ella Christie in 1908, a formidable traveller who visited Japan in 1907. On her return she commissioned a female Japanese horticulturist, Taki Handa, to design and supervise the building of the Japanese garden called Shah-rak-uen, which means a place of pleasure of delight. It covers 7 acres and is centred on an artificial lake. The garden enjoyed a long period of use but in 1963, it was vandalised and fell into decline. Sara Stewart inherited the garden in 2008 and created a charity in 2014 to safeguard its future. Its restoration was overseen by Professor Fukuhara and completed in 2018.
This stroll garden around a lake includes a central island reached by a yatsuhashi bridge to the south and an arched bridge to the north. The stone lanterns are original, though some sections were lost and so have been modified or replaced. Within the karesansui (dry garden) are four moss-covered ‘islands’, one representing a turtle and another resembling a crane.
Lauriston Castle Edinburgh
The Japanese garden at Lauriston Castle is within a former nineteenth-century villa garden which is now a public park. Remarkable views across the Firth of Forth make it the perfect setting for this Friendship Garden, designed by Takashi Sawano, and opened in 2002. The one-hectare garden was a millennium project, strengthening ties between Edinburgh City Council and Kyoto Prefecture.
The land slopes south to north. This spiritual axis, is emphasised by a summerhouse at the top of a flights of stone steps with views down to the main entrance in the north, and beyond the walled boundary to Cramond Island and Inchcolm Island. Stone from across Edinburgh has been re-purposed within the garden. A path of reclaimed Edinburgh cobblestones connects the central stone pillar, previously in the Free Church headquarters, to the main garden entrance.
Water from a high (‘male’) waterfall flows underneath a footbridge over a low (‘female’) waterfall and into a pond with an island, which can be accessed using large stepping stones. The karesansui (gravel) garden nestles up to the hill-and-pond garden and is surrounded by a stroll garden, without any of the usual boundaries or masking of views. This is not traditional in a Japanese garden design, but it works beautifully.
St Mungo’ s Glasgow
Amongst the imposing stone buildings of Glasgow is the Saint Mungo’s Museum of Religious Life and Art and an authentic karesansui courtyard garden. The high walled garden at the rear of the museum was the perfect location for the ‘Zen’ garden designed in 1993 by Yasutaro Tanaka, vice-president of Kyoto’s Landscape Association.
Originally the garden consisted of gravel, rocks and moss, but the moss was rather unsuccessful. After major restoration to eradicate marestail, fine grasses now replace the moss. The result is stunning, simple and serene. A stone-flagged path at one side leading to the museum has chairs to enable contemplation. The last place you would expect to find a meditation garden!
Lafcadio Hearn Garden
The gardens reflect the life and work of Patrick Lafcadio Hearn, 1850-1904, who grew up in Ireland. His life journey embraced several parts of the world including Greece, New Orleans before settling in Japan, where he was known as Koizumi Yakumo. He was well-known in the West for his books describing Japan. To trace the journey of his life, related through plants, landscape, water and stone, the visitor follows a guided route through a small walled Victorian garden, an American prairie style garden and a Greek amphitheatre before reaching the main sections of the garden that commemorate Hearn’s life and work in Japan. Martin Curran, the garden designer who led the team that constructed the gardens, brought with him invaluable knowledge and experience of the Japanese sense of spatial awareness in rock placement, that he had gleaned working in Japan for a number of years.
Several notable Japanese garden structures have been added since the formal opening in 2015. These include a fujidana or pergola, which acts as the ‘Gateway to Japan’ in the story of Hearn’s journey from West to East, an azumaya or summer pavilion and a teahouse. These wooden structures were designed by architect Mike Roberts, an expert on Japanese garden structures, and made on site by master carpenter Richard Cowman. The pre-existing 19th century planting of mature trees created an established backdrop for the more recent addition of cherries, bamboos, pine trees, camellia, magnolia and many other specimen plants.
Tully gardens at the Irish National Stud
The gardens were laid out by Japanese master horticulturist Tassa Eida and his son Minor between 1906 and 1910. Eida was involved in designing gardens for the Japan-British Exhibition in Hammersmith in 1910. It took forty labourers four years to lay out the garden, at a cost of £38,000. Hundreds of tonnes of rock were carted from the Silliot hills, and large, mature Scots pines transplanted from Dunmurray. Eida’s brother lived in Japan at this time, and between them they organised a chartered cargo from Japan to bring stone lanterns, plants, bonsai, a tea house and a miniature village, the various parts of the latter carved in Fujiyama lava. Crevasses in the individual pieces of lava from which the village was cut have been used to grow dwarfed conifers and azaleas.
Their aim was, through trees, plants, flowers, lawns, rocks and water, to symbolise the ‘Life of Man’. Japanese style bridgework and a tea house are also present. The karesansui garden represents oblivion before rebirth.
The plants used in the Tully garden include spring-flowering species of cherry blossom, flowering almond and plum, with Japanese azaleas and camellias forming a canopy over St Bridget anemonies, and other spring bulbs. In summer the hostas, ferns, Japanese anemonies and Tibetan poppies provide a lovely shaded tranquillity beneath the tree canopy. Autumn isperhaps the most spectacular season, with the wonderful diversity of autumn colour on the Japanese maples.
Many of the original bonsai Larix kaempferi and Chamaecyparis obtusa, in particular, are still growing in the garden, but although still pruned to give the appearance of bonsai, they have long since burst their pots, and are rooted into the ground.
Sir Thomas and Lady Dixon Park - Belfast
Covering more than 128 acres, the park is home to the City of Belfast International Rose Garden, along with rolling meadows, woodland, and a Japanese style garden.
The Japanese style garden is a stroll garden sitting in a bowl and centred around a large pond with an island and stepping stones. Other features include stone lanterns, stone bridges and a variety of Japanese plants. It was officially opened in September 1991 by then Crown Prince Naruhito as part of the Japan Festival 1991 celebrations.
