Large and Small Glasshouses, Malleny Garden

Malleny is an estate at Balerno, on the edge of Edinburgh, whose present house incorporates parts of a house of 1589. The Scotts held it for several generations before the 5th Earl of Rosebery bought the house and gardens in 1882; in 1968 the house, gardens and estate buildings were given to the National Trust for Scotland.

The two glasshouses in the walled garden date from after that purchase. The Trust places them between 1883 and 1893, because both appear on the 1893 Ordnance Survey map. The Large Glasshouse is known to be the work of MacKenzie & Moncur: it still carries the firm's brass plaque above the door and appears in its 1892 catalogue. The small one, close in style to designs in the same catalogue, is attributed to the firm with less certainty. The Trust thinks the large house was built mainly for display, and the small one for everyday work.

After well over a century under the Scottish climate, the timber and brickwork called for heavy repair. The Trust carried it out in two phases: the Large Glasshouse in the first half of 2023, supported by Historic Environment Scotland's Organisational Support Fund, and the small one from August 2023 into 2024, thanks to HES's Partnership Fund and the Trust's US foundation. The works were managed by Adams Napier Partnership and carried out by Crown Traditional Craftsmen.

Historic Environment Scotland's listing describes a walled garden north of the house, enclosed on three sides by rubble walls with sandstone slab copings, with greenhouses against its north wall. Both glasshouses stand on brick plinth walls and carry a timber frame, of which the 2023-24 project replaced decayed rafters, sills and glazing bars, faithfully reproducing the moulded profiles before renewing the glazing. Metal elements were taken back to bare metal, repaired, reinstated in their original position and redecorated; only small adjustments were made to improve performance and longevity.

The Small Glasshouse keeps an unusual ventilation mechanism: the entire roof apex lifts when a lever inside is pulled down. The National Trust for Scotland knows of no other example in Scotland or elsewhere, which could make it unique. The Large Glasshouse still has the MacKenzie & Moncur brass plaque. The ensemble is Category A listed, and the garden has been on the Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes in Scotland since 1987.

According to the head gardener, the Large Glasshouse is used to display tender plants, as authentically as possible to how it was used some 130 years ago: a range of nineteenth-century Pelargonium cultivars, a new collection of Primula auricula cultivars suited to the date of the building, and Salvia x jamensis cultivars, more modern but in the spirit of the house, still to be added. The purchases were funded by a donation from the Trust's Edinburgh members' centre.

The Small Glasshouse does much as before: propagating plants for the garden and for display in the large house, growing ornamental plants and a few vegetables, and overwintering tender plants. A tourist guide, Undiscovered Scotland, also notes vines in these glasshouses. Around them the garden holds a national collection of nineteenth-century shrub roses and about 150 rose varieties in all.

The glasshouses stand in the walled garden at Malleny in Balerno, 8 miles west of central Edinburgh and just off the A70. The Large Glasshouse is part of the visited garden, whereas the house is not open. An hour is enough for the garden and its glasshouses. The roses, including the national collection, are at their best in June and July. The walled garden opens onto the Four Evangelists, clipped yews about 400 years old; outside it, a doocot with an unusual saddle-backed roof and a small woodland border the Water of Leith.