Barncleugh, the property of Lord Belhaven, forms a portion of the steep banks of the Evan before mentioned, amounting to 36 acres, with a small house with crow-step gables, and the banks of the river laid out in terraces, which, from their architectural remains, must at some former time have been extremely beautiful and interesting, in their striking contrast with the wildest description of woody scenery. The terraces and every part of the garden are now in a ruinous state; even the figures cut in yew and box not being clipt, and consequently fast losing their artificial shapes. This is easily accounted for, neither the gardener nor the person who occupies the house setting much value on this style of gardening. A portion of level surface on which they could grow kitchen crops would evidently please them much better. The bank appears to have been formed into three parallel terraces varying in width, retained by very high walls, most of which have been covered with fruit trees; and in some parts there are niches with seats, in others buttresses; and in one there is a recess with the remains of a bath, in front of which, in an area which, if we are not mistaken, the gardener told us was once covered with a glass roof, are still the lead pipes and other wreck of a basin and fountain. The beau-ideal of the ruins of this part of the garden, restored, forms the frontispiece to Sir Thomas Dick Lauder's edition of Price on the Picturesque. In that work is given an account of the origin of the garden, which, as it is very curious, we shall quote at length.
