Callendar Park

http://portal.historic-scotland.gov.uk/hes/web/f?p=PORTAL:DESIGNATIONS:0

Type of Site

A large 18th and 19th century informal parkland landscape, now largely a public park for the town of Falkirk.

Location and Setting

Callendar Park lies on the east side of Falkirk town centre, between the A803 and the Union Canal. Parts of the park are visible from the east end of Falkirk High Street, but its northern edge, including the Antonine Wall, provides the main impact along Callendar Road (A803). The physical setting of house and designed landscape is given a distinctive character by the presence of glacial eskers and raised beaches to the north of the house.

The landscape is largely inward looking although now surrounded by built development. To the north and west, the park provides the setting for high and low rise residential development, the former taking advantage of expansive views over the park. Views into the park from the south are obscured by Callendar Wood which forms an important backdrop to the Hallgreen area. The park is also visible from the Edinburgh'Glasgow railway line.

The significant axial view into the site from the A803 breaks through the Antonine Wall and provides views out of the site to the countryside and the Ochils. The latter view has been compromised by ill-considered birch planting, while the view south has been obscured by tree overgrowth. There are important views into the landscape from Kemper Avenue on the north-west side of the landscape.

Blaeu's atlas, 1654, indicates a Callendar Castle and shows woodland to the south. There is no indication of a park pale which is somewhat surprising, but the woodland appears to be extensive and between two rivers or burns which may have acted as boundaries. The landscape is more clearly defined on General Roy's Military Survey, 1747'55, and on a closely corresponding 1781 survey plan by John Horne. Both surveys indicate that the estate boundaries remain roughly similar today apart from encroachment by the town of Falkirk outwith the park wall to the north, to the north-west within the park and to the north-east by the railway line.

Landscape Components

Architectural Features

Callendar House dates from the late 14th to the late 19th century. The architectural character is French chateau-style following a thorough remodeling between 1869'77. The Offices and Stables lie north-west of the house and date from the mid 18th century or later. They comprise a courtyard of two-storey 'offices' with an early 19th-century cart shed at the south- west and a contemporary block with segmental arches and a crenellated doocot tower at the north-west. A single-storey stable was added at a later date. Other buildings include the single-storey Factor's House to the north. This is two storeys to the rear, the whole being embellished with pointed oriental-type crenellation. The Forbes Mausoleum, designed by Archibald Elliot, is a simple rectangular drum cella with peristyle of 12 Doric Greek columns. The mausoleum is centred on a circular enclosure with stone wall and ditch. Glenbrae (Shielhill or West Lodge) is c.1835, single-storey, with stugged ashlar front. It has panelled gate-piers. This is the only remaining lodge on the Callendar estate. The Ice-house is built into a bank north-east of Callendar House. It has a pedimented ashlar doorway. The East Burn Dry or Cascade Bridge is early 19th century, probably by David Hamilton, and supersedes an earlier 18th century bridge. The stone balustraded parapet has been removed and replaced with a tubular metal rail. A small segmental arched Bridge to the south of the house over the now dried-up canal is probably 18th century. The Sundial, dated 1677 and no longer on the site, was in the Summerhouse, of which only the stonework base and foundations remain. The summerhouse stood on the south axis of the house. The Walled Garden, north-east of Callendar House, was built in the 1790s. The garden has stone walls and entrance pillars with large ball finials. This entrance has been widened for modern use. A disused north entrance is built of dressed stone blocks with large cap-stones. There were probably finials, but these have not survived. The cast-iron gates are later. Funerary monuments in Callendar House Graveyard now lie in pieces, having been vandalised. The Refreshment Kiosk, Toilets and surrounding paving by the west drive were built around the 1970s. The fenced Play Area is more recent. Seaton Place Tower Blocks, built in the north- west corner of the parkland, are an example of the modernist trend of building in mature landscapes, inspired by Le Corbusier, which began in Britain with the Alton Estate in Roehampton in the early 1960s. The estate is partly enclosed by a Stone Wall which has been breached in several places by recent development.

Drives and Approaches

There is a complex hierarchy of drives which has changed over the years. Most of the old approaches have been compromised. However, the internal network of paths and drives remains well defined. The north approach, breaching the Antonine Wall, is a long-standing feature evident on Roy's Military Survey, 1747'55. Banks on either side of this old drive are planted with sycamore, now probably around 200'250 years old. A c.1790 plan shows that there was a west branch from the drive which ran alongside the Antonine Wall and terminated in a roundel and lodge which are no longer extant. A footpath follows this line today. The present north-west drive, west of this and closer to Falkirk, is now the main vehicular access to the park and serves the five high rise tower blocks, teashop, car park and Callendar Park House. Remnants of park planting survive between the main car park and its junction with Cascade Bridge and along the remainder of the north-west drive. There are some beeches and lime, including a narrow avenue of limes, between the teashop and the car park. On the north side, there are limes about 125'150 years old. With the building of new drives after 1790, the north drive was retained as a highly significant vista from the house.

The east drive close to the house is also old. It appears planted as an avenue by 1781, by which time it led east and south-east to the park boundary and to what is later noted as Lochbank Gate. By 1790, two sinuous drives had been taken off the east drive close to the Lochbank Gate entrance. One wound its way to a new north-east park entrance; the other, possibly more of a pleasure drive, followed a curving line along the south perimeter of the woodland around Henry's Hill to cross over Cascade Bridge and approached the house from the west. By 1816, a branch led off the south drive to the mausoleum, while other branches beyond led north through the woodland to the house.

Following the building of the Stirlingshire Midland Junction Railway in the mid 19th century, the north-east entrance was moved westwards. A new lodge was built adjacent to Callendar Road and a new section of drive formed close to the east side of the walled garden and then reconnected with the lower section of the original drive. Recently, the north-east approach has been cut off by the development of Callendar Park Business Park and the lodge demolished, but part of the drive still remains within the park and is planted with lime. There are large gaps due to wind blow and the crowns have been reduced to prevent further losses. These trees are about 140'170 years old.

With the formation of a new west entrance at Shielhill Lodge by 1818, and the introduction of a new short section of drive which linked to the south drive, a more direct east'west drive through the policies was achieved. Today, the west lodge (formerly Shielhill Lodge, now Glenbrae Lodge) has been severed from the remainder of the policies by 20th-century housing in the north-west corner of the park. The drive over Cascade Bridge now leads to Kemper Avenue and through the housing estate before terminating in a new access north of the west lodge.

Parkland

One of the larger areas of open parkland to the north-west of the house and stables is now occupied by the 1960s high rise flats. Many trees surviving in this area were probably woodland trees selectively left to grow as parkland specimens. The parkland character extends to the lawn on the north front of the house, which is framed by the planted eskers. Some large tree stumps remain to the north-east. A municipal golf course has overtaken parkland to the south-west.

Woodland

Callendar Wood occupies the southern half of the policies. The wood is managed for forestry but mixed with areas of broadleaves of long plantation origin. As early as 1707, Sir Robert Sibbald refers to Callendar: 'a large wood adjacent to it, walks cut through it and fish ponds near the house'. The New Statistical Account of Scotland, 1845, refers to the '250 acres of coppice, mostly oak upon ground rising gently to the south...'. There are substantial remains of the oak coppice still in the wood. The wood is a Listed Scottish Wildlife Trust, Wildlife Site, and is in the Falkirk Rural Area Local Plan. The east'west south pleasure drive cuts directly across the wood and remains in good order.

Water Features

The canal which forms an important feature of the designed landscape was originally a burn that was widened and the lake, now known as Callendar Loch, was made later on the eastern side. The lake is first evident in its present form on the 1st edition OS 1:10560 (6in), 1862. The rather ugly boating pond was added in 1971 and is separated from the loch by a berm. The south-east part of the loch is managed for nature conservation. A pipe carries the overflow from the loch along the 'canal'. The burn was also enlarged at the western end to form a pond which is no longer extant.

The Gardens

There are few early references to a garden around the house. The north lawn appears always to have been a grass lawn which has changed shape over the years from circular to oval, but has always covered roughly the same area. A shallow terrace runs along the north front of the house with central steps leading to the north lawn. The steps were added when the house was extended in the 19th century.

The south lawn is smaller but runs the length of the house and is bounded by the dry canal to the south. It was divided by paths and once had a central fountain. The pathways are now grassed over.

Walled Garden

The walled garden is now occupied by the Callendar Business Park and divorced from Callendar Park. The 1948 RAF oblique aerial photographs show that the garden was divided into eight quarters by paths, the layout indicated on the c.1790 plan. A gardeners' bothy remains on the north wall and a well in the south-east corner.

Arboretum

The shrubberies and arboretum south of the 'canal' form an extension to the garden south of the house. The area lies on rising ground and was created out of part of the extensive Callendar Wood. There have been plantings of exotic trees at different times with an understorey of Rhododendron and other shrubs. The framework is mainly oak and Scots pine. Old yew and holly make a strong feature along the northern edge and similarly several Western red cedar along the eastern edge.

There was much new planting here in the 1970s, including native and exotic species, in the form of the George Forrest Collection. Some of 40 plants listed include Rhododendron (Rhododendron trichostomum, Rhododendron decorum), maple (Acer forrestii), Pieris (Pieris forrestii 'Wakehurst'), Fragrant olive (Osmanthus yunnanensis), Butterfly bush (Buddleia fallowiana), and Daphne (Daphne odora).

The focal point of the arboretum was the summerhouse of which only the foundations remain. A network of grass paths still leads from this into the shrubbery/arboretum.