Inveresk Lodge Garden Lean-to Glasshouse

Inveresk Lodge, south of Musselburgh, was built in 1683. The Wedderburn family lived there from 1774 to 1911, when John Brunton, a Quaker, bought it. In 1958 Mrs Helen Brunton left the house and garden to the National Trust for Scotland, which lets the house to private occupants and opens the garden to the public. The earliest evidence of a garden comes from a lawsuit of 1781. At the start of the twentieth century four gardeners worked there; after wartime vegetable growing the garden was neglected, then redesigned by the Trust so that a single gardener could look after it.

The glasshouse stands just to the left of the entrance gate. The Trust says it was made by the 'famous glasshouse designers' Mackenzie and Moncur, thought to have been built in 1853 and then extended in Edwardian times, and repaired several times, most recently in 2023. These statements sit uneasily with another Trust page, on Falkland Palace, which gives the Edinburgh firm Mackenzie & Moncur an existence from 1868 to 1998.

In August 2023 a Trust plant audit described the 'recently renovated lean-to glasshouse', rich in fine specimens of tender plants and an extensive collection of pelargoniums.

It is a lean-to glasshouse divided into two compartments in sequence: the Trust speaks of a 'first house' devoted to pelargoniums and geraniums, 'followed' by a second for fruit. Visitors enter by seven steps and leave by three more on the far side, onto the climbing rose terrace; the entrance is one metre wide, with a narrower central doorway (83 cm). A light comes on when the weather is dull, and a visitor toilet has been fitted inside. The Trust notes that the temperature can climb to 47 degrees.

The first compartment holds a colourful collection of pelargoniums and geraniums. The second grows a wide variety of fruit: figs, chilli peppers, tomatoes, grapes and peaches. A white board inside lists seasonal plants and wildlife to look for during the visit, and interpretation guides are available to take around the garden.

The 2023 plant audit recorded many fine specimens of tender plants, including an extensive collection of pelargoniums. Outside, the garden shows plants recognised by the Royal Horticultural Society (Award of Garden Merit) and a rose border designed by Graham Stuart Thomas, according to Wikipedia.

The hillside garden has lawns and borders at the top of the slope and meadow, woodland and ponds below; the glasshouse is the first stop, to the left of the entrance. It can be walked through to reach the climbing rose terrace, the highest point of the garden, which has a view. Lower down, a platform allows pond dipping (visitors bring their own nets).

There is no café or refreshment kiosk; Musselburgh High Street, with its shops, is a fifteen-minute walk away. The garden lies east of Edinburgh, and the Trust's page names Newhailes as a nearby place. It opens daily, from early January to the end of December.