Castle Hill, or Dunimarle, Mrs. Erskine, is a residence on the summit of the same high bank as that on which Culross Abbey stands. It is chiefly remarkable, in a garden point of view, for a new garden wall flued and built with towers and battlements; the lower parts of the towers serving as stokeholes for the furnaces, and the upper parts as chimneys to the flues. The appropriation is satisfactory. In front of this wall, and on the verge of a steep declivity to the sea-shore (?), 300 ft. below, there is a broad border, and, next, a terrace walk between two rows of Irish yews. Near the house is a greenhouse, the front of which is formed by a wall made sufficiently high to conceal the gardener when at work among the plants. This feeling on the part of the proprietor is not so singular as may at first be imagined: no one likes to come into a room while the housemaids are at work. In the grounds, a portion of the remains of M'Duff's castle is shown, and near it is a tower 60 ft. high, which commands a view of the Forth and the adjacent country, from Stirling Castle to North Berwick Law. The steep bank is covered with fruit trees, among which are some pears known to have been planted A. D. 1600, and of which the particulars have been given in our Volume for 1841, p. 464. There are a chapel and burying-ground near Culross with many curious tombs, which we regret we had not time to see; and there are ancient architectural combinations in the town itself, well worth the attention of the architect as hints for composition. The road to Alva passes Clackmannan Tower and the walls of the Earl of Mar's park, and exhibits some fine views and rich culture.
