Rakewell, Apollo’s wandering eye on the art world, takes a rakish look at art and museum stories. Scotland is not a large nation. With a population of 5.
5 million, its position as an arbiter of international luxury taste could be seen as surprising. But then it has always had a surprising influence on the world’s stage – tartan, curling and lino, to name a few of the country’s contributions to culture. One more example to join these glittering ranks is Drummond Castle, the gardens of which are exceptionally beautiful.
They are a 19th-century version of a garden that dates to before 1745 – for obvious reasons, which we’ll get to later. Pleasingly, the start of June has seen the garden come into its own as the site of megabrand Dior’s latest cruise collection – the runway shows that take place between the spring/summer and autumn/winter ones. You can see the thinking.
They’d done Lecce, Seville, Athens (in front of the Acropolis, no less), so Perthshire was the natural next step. The formal gardens hit a rough patch from 1745, owing to the small matter of the confiscation of lands after the Jacobite rising, which took place that year. The castle belonged to the Drummonds, a distinctly Stuart-supporting family.
The second Earl was privy counsellor to James VI (known as James I south of the border) and Charles I. Models on the runway at the Dior Cruise 2025 Show at Drummond Castle in Perthshire, Scotland. Photo: Yannis Vlamos/WWD via Getty Images The question is.
