Carolside House and Gardens

Carolside Gardens is a little hotbed in the Borders.

Amble through Earlston on the A68 and slip down the drive, and through the former deer park, and you land in the land of roses...both horticultural and human!

You're greeted by an 18th Century Mansion, rooted on a plain beside a curve in the Leader Water. Built for the Lord Chief Justice of East Florida, James Hume, who returned to Scotland in 1783 with a bob or two in his pension, he had this superb Palladian mansion built, thought to have been designed in the style of Isaac Ware's Chesterfield House in London.

Look at its beautiful symmetry and stylish front: five bays over three floors with Santa ample chimney stacks and a piended roof (a beautiful Scottish term for a hipped roof...why does it sound so much better?) It's easy on the eye and inviting as there are changing vistas with every curve and turn.

Though not opento thepublic, the house is beautiful to view from outside. We enjoyed watching the rent-free lodgers living in the pediment of the window.

Cross the lawn, and you're drawn into a world behind the walls. Once you've popped your pennies in the honesty box, you're free to take in the sights and scents that Carolside has to share.

The real pièce de résistance here are the roses...grown by Rose. How did this equation begin? Do you have a responsibility to be the host home to the National Collection of Gallica Roses if you're called Rose, or do you learn to yearn for the particulars of petals, become a layman to stamens, and a queen of all things green?

Rose Foyle is the horticultural hostess behind the house, the hostas and this whole walled wonder. Featured in The Guide to the Rose Gardens of Europe, it's a peaceful place to wander and wonder at the colour, smells and sounds that surround. When we visited, the only din came from the bees, bustling from flower to flower.

This is evident in the paths and plots that lie behind the secret door to the walled garden. The wanderer is met by a profusion of colour: limey Alchemilla harbouring dew in its scalloped leaves, virulent Delphiniums, the pokey points of Day Lily leaves, and the soft fronds of Ferns all welcome you to walk amongst them.

Phlox and Stocks and Lemon Cephalaria all nodding in the sunshine are closely carpeted by creeping Campanula and Catmint.

There are arbours and arches aplenty, all giving a guiding glance of what's beyond.

The knot garden, small smart boxwood rows and rings make way for the hot spot of the Victorian Glasshouse.

Swing the door ajar, and Pelargoniums pepper the shelves with Carnations climbing up canes. The heady heat is obviously good for growth!

We stopped for a while and just sat in the sun and soaked up the calm of Carolside.

Every vista offers a new opportunity. We loved watching the nervy Peacocks butterflies, trying to blend in but their blousy colours giving them away on the oregano, and then wandering through wrought iron gates and wooden doorways wondering where we'd end up.

During the months of June to early August, Carolside is a radiant array of roses, sweet-smelling and delicate.

I asked Rose what her hopes were in opening her garden. She told me -

The architectural interest is not just in Carolside House but mirrored in the walled gardens, which reflect as a series of horticultural rooms, each with its own theme and colour scheme; whether gentle curves or straight lines, there are thoughtful pieces punctuating each glance.

Coming full circle through the rose, herb, secret, winter gardens and the apple orchard and leaving behind the walled garden, you're struck by a different face of Carolside.

There was a cute little tea room in the conservatory, a 1950s addition to Carolside, where you can pay in an honesty box for refreshments whilst you sit on the lawn and take in all the splendour of the house and gardens.

Once replenished and legs rested, we took a stroll through the mighty rose gates, inviting us beyond the huge beech hedge to wander along the riverside, known historically as Lovers Walk. In 1769, if it had existed, the pages of OK Magazine would have been alive with the news and gossip of Lady Sarah Lennox falling out of love with her husband, Sir Charles Banbury, and fleeing to Carolside and into the arms of her lover and cousin Lord William Gordon! Me oh my...the tongues of Earlston would be in overdrive!

Today, it's a peaceful promenade along the Leader Water, dotted with Water Forget Me Nots and yellow Mimulus. You can enjoy the view down the river from the late 18th-century sandstone bridge; steep and steamy for some river-revelling lovers to reveal their sweet nothings, getting amorous above the arch!

And below is a small single-storied Gothic grotto, standing in ruins, but still best for secret snogging...should the fancy take you!

It was a beautiful place to visit, with lovely welcoming owners. Rose said:

If the sky is blue and you fancy the heady scent of some summer roses, then Carolside is, as was described in The New Statistical Account of Scotland (a 15 volume comprehensive survey of every parish in Scotland...sounds like my type of bedtime reading!)

I couldn't have put it better myself!

In a world that sometimes feels like it's lost the plot, Carolside is some calm.