Boath House
Auldearn, Nairn, Inverness-shire
Located on Scotland’s idyllic Moray Coast, Boath House is a traditional Georgian home set in 22 acres of grounds and parklands. Whilst the house’s 400-year-old walled garden, country trails and ornamental lakes have ensured it as a primary historical attraction for visitors from across the globe, the estate continues to adapt to visitor demand with the addition of a garden produce café and contemporary planting methods.
Under the supervision WMGarden Design and new head gardener Stephen Crockett, the garden and surrounding grounds continually regenerate to produce a sophisticated yet practical example of modern horticulture.
With the opening of the garden produce café, The Kale Yard in 2018, the estate has placed substantial focus on creating sustainable crops in its production field. ‘The Kale Yard’, which roughly translates to ‘kitchen garden’ in old Scots, features a wood fired oven and constantly changing daily menu, reacting to the availability of fresh produce.
Since the Matheson family acquired the Boath House in 1992, its gardeners have worked to ensure that the grounds retain their rich historical value whilst adapting to produce a more eclectic and versatile horticultural offering. Current gardeners have transformed the gardens; introducing a perennial style of planting giving both colour in summer and structure in winter. Results of the perennial planting style can be observed in the main walled garden with many grasses, an orchard and a herb garden.
Boath House is perfectly designed and famed for its abundance of wildlife. The garden’s Wildflower meadow provides both diversity for wildlife and a constantly changing vista whilst the wildlife lake is home to many swans and ducks. A range of nature walks and trails run within the grounds of Boath House and offer an excellent opportunity to explore the estate and enjoy resident wildlife.
Website: www.boath-house.com
Telephone: Hotel - 01667 454896 cafe - 01667 452233
Opening times: 5 days cafe closed Monday/Tues
Admission costs: gardens only open to visitors of the hotel or garden cafe
Garden of the Week is in association with Discover Scottish Gardens. For more information, advice and day-out ideas, visit discoverscottishgardens.org
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here