Riding the winds

Attadale Gardens, Wester Ross After their almost total destruction by storms, the gardens at Attadale were brilliantly revived by Nicolette Macpherson and continue to thrive, finds James Truscott

- James Truscott

AS the south-westerly gale bearing salt-laden horizontal rain from the Atlantic howled up Loch Carron into the Highland interior, it lashed the Attadale Estate unmercifully and brought mayhem to all in its path. Mighty boughs more than a century old came crashing heavily to the ground in the storms of the late 1980s, as whole trees on the hillside above the house were upended like sinking ships, revealing ragged plates of roots above the water-filled craters left behind. The gale finally subsided, leaving a scene of wholesale devastation, but, fortunately, the whiteharled turretted house was spared.

Surveying what was left of the woodland and gardens was South-African born artist Nicolette Macpherson (or Nicky, as she was generally known), the late mother of the present owner Joanna Macpherson. Until then, the now largely denuded, steeply sloping flanks of Attadale had, together with surrounding conifer woodland, provided precious shelter to the house and gardens for more than two centuries. Indeed, the normally benign weather, warmed by the influence of the Gulf Stream, had allowed the growth of plants usually considered tender at such latitudes.

Far from being daunted by the clean-up task ahead, the artistic eye of Nicky saw this as a serendipitous event, offering the chance to create a whole new series of linked gardens wrapping around the slope above and next to the house, arranged in sequence, like pictures at an exhibition, and designed to provide the backdrop to an important collection of art.