The Glass House, Drumlanrig Castle Gardens

Drumlanrig has belonged to the Douglas family since the Middle Ages: Parks & Gardens reports that in the 14th century Robert the Bruce granted land in Nithsdale to the Douglases, and that the present castle was remodelled between 1679 and 1689 under William Douglas, 1st Duke of Queensberry. The Buccleuch and Queensberry titles were united by Henry, 3rd Duke of Buccleuch; his successor Walter Francis, the 5th Duke, inherited in 1819 and spent some sixty-five years restoring the castle and grounds. A team of thirty gardeners once looked after the gardens, the castle's website recalls. The walled kitchen garden, built around 1830, held extensive glasshouse ranges by about 1845, among them some 200 feet of glass for vines and peaches and pine stoves; judged in 1883 to have few equals in the country, they all fell into ruin between the two World Wars.

The surviving glass house is later. Charles Howitt designed it around 1877: Historic Environment Scotland cites an original drawing dated 1877 held in the national record (NMRS). Parks & Gardens adds that it began as a camellia house. It has been listed Category B since 26 June 1986, grouped with the Gardener's Cottage. The sources date its restoration differently: the Parks & Gardens record gives 2003 to 2007, whereas the text of the Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes speaks of work about a century after construction. The castle's website now lists the restored Victorian glasshouses among the sights of the gardens.

Historic Environment Scotland describes a large ten-bay glass house of lectern shape whose roof, unusually, rises over the rear wall to form a buttressed clerestory. It stands on a polished red ashlar base, with vertical supports carrying the roof timbers and a door in each flank. A lower rubble-built lean-to on the north side, with ashlar dressings, runs the full length and housed the boiler, a store and an office; it has three north-facing doors, four small-paned sash windows and a graded slate roof, and a modern chimney has been added for the boiler. Inside, continuous shelving runs along three sides, a perimeter passage surrounds a rectangular bedding area edged by a red ashlar wall, and slender iron columns at each bay help carry the roof timbers.

A camellia house at the outset, the building now holds fruit and tender plants, according to Parks & Gardens, which adds that it is still used to raise plants for the gardens. The setting helps to gauge what is at stake: the forty acres of gardens include a collection of more than 500 varieties of rhododendrons and azaleas, hybrids included, part of it grown from seed gathered around the world, notably in the Himalaya. The blue poppy Meconopsis baileyi flowers in May, the 183-metre terrace is known for its tender climbing plants, and "The Shawl", a parterre of finely clipped heather, recalls the 5th Duke's marriage in 1829. The Heather Houses, rustic mid-19th-century shelters made of split logs and twisted roots, are decorated with shell and heather motifs.

The glass house stands near the Gardener's Cottage, in what the Historic Environment Scotland listing calls the castle's "Flower Garden". In 2026 the gardens are open every day from 28 February to 31 October. A visit combines naturally with the Heather Houses, the Long Terrace Walk and, in May, the rhododendrons, azaleas and the bluebells around the historic pet cemetery. The Larchwood Cabin café at the garden entrance also sells plants. The castle itself is open only for guided tours on set dates, while the estate's walks and trails stay open all year.