community gardens
Lying just north of Inverness, Strathpeffer was effectively built by the Victorians in the late 1800s, when its sulphurous springs were thought to hold the same curative powers as those in the spa towns of Bath and Harrogate.
The Highland hamlet was quickly transformed by a branch railway, a huge pavilion, guest houses, and by the Victorians’ typical enthusiasm for new plants and trees.
While the railway has now closed, the Victorians’ influence lives on today, as you’ll discover during the village’s forthcoming open gardens weekend – StrathPetal – on 16th and 17th August this year.
Janet Bowen, the originator of the event, explained, “Wealthy Victorian households flocked here to ‘take the waters’, and Strathpeffer was developed with great enthusiasm and some eccentricity. That extended to the plants and gardening techniques garnered from across the empire and although that provenance is now a controversial topic, its legacy inarguably contributes to making Strathpeffer a great place to live over a century later.
“We’re delighted so many garden owners are joining in StrathPetal 2025. By holding it in August, we hope late summer perennial plants will be at their best and, having a cooler climate here in the Highlands, our sweet peas will be at their height.
“We’ll have live music in the square, refreshments, and a wonderful vintage MacBrayne’s bus to help people get from one garden to the next.”
At the turn of the 19th century, Strathpeffer had its own thriving horticultural society. Discoveries by the era’s celebrated plant hunters were becoming mainstream – rhododendrons and camellias, which enjoy the area’s peaty soil, became hugely popular, as were ferns and even dahlias which were given their first public exhibition here in Scotland.
The Spencer type of sweet pea, grown most widely today, had only been introduced in 1901. Its meteoric popularity is evidenced by records of Strathpeffer’s grand ‘Sweet Pea Competition’ in 1910.
“We are reviving the event 115 years later, albeit just for fun,” explained Alison Munro-White, a member of the organising team. “We’ll display entries to our sweet pea contest in one of the village churches and announce the winner at the event, but we definitely won’t be awarding prizes, as they did then, for the best-kept garden. The criteria for that would be very different now to what it was in 1910!”
St Anne’s, a beautiful Listed church in the heart of Strathpeffer, will host the sweet pea competition as well as offering a host of cut flower displays over the weekend.
The Victorians also bestowed upon the village their appetite for new tree species – notably Giant Sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum) from California, and Monkey Puzzle trees (Araucaria araucana) from Chile. Strathpeffer resident and former forester Peter Walling said it’s unlikely any other village has quite such a collection of these extraordinary trees.
“The sequoias, or wellingtonias as they are also known, named after the Duke of Wellington, are the biggest trees in the world in terms of mass, and those introduced here by the Victorians are now of an appreciable size. I doubt you will see so many in any other village of Strathpeffer’s comparatively small size.”
The 20 or so gardens open during StrathPetal will include houses famed for their gardens well over 100 years ago. Overdale, one of its many beautiful Victorian villas, won best Best Kept Garden in Strathpeffer in 1908, narrowly beating nearby Hamilton House; while Raven Cottage, nearly 200 years old, became home for the head gardener at the still thriving Ben Wyvis Hotel built in 1887. All three houses will be opening their gates to visitors over the StrathPetal weekend.
“Accounts of Strathpeffer’s garden show in the early 1900s reveal that entries for the ‘best kept garden’ competition were restricted to those that employed a gardener for no more than three days a week,” explained Alison. “It gives an insight into how many people were employed in horticulture back in the day, and how much importance was placed on having a productive and enviable garden.”
Times have changed and now most of us must be content with planting and weeding our own gardens in between a multitude of other household tasks and a full-time job but organisers hope StrathPetal will embrace its Victorian ancestors’ love of simply having a good time.
There will, however, also be a productive side. Proceeds from the event will go towards local environmental projects and Alzheimer’s Scotland, helping those affected and their families to deal with this difficult disease.
You can find out more about the weekend at www.strathpetal.co.uk or via their facebook page. Tickets can be bought in advance via the website or on the day - £6pp per day or £10 for the weekend, under 12s are free.