Threave House, Castle Douglas

We love Threave Estate and Gardens and enjoy visiting them. However, until now, we hadn’t managed to visit when the house was open. 

Unlike the gardens, the house isn’t open every day (currently only Friday to Monday) so it’s best to phone ahead. 

Scottish Baronial House in Gardens
Snooker table inside Threave House

A fascinating 19th-century Scottish Baronial house, Threave boasts intriguing round rooms built into the turrets.

We particularly enjoyed seeing the original snooker table and being allowed to play the 19th-century Grotrian-Steinweg Grand Piano.

The friendly volunteers shared the fascinating history of the house’s construction and also the Gordon family who lived there. William Gordon built the house in 1872, using distinctive red sandstone quarried from nearby Dumfries. The Gordon family made Threave their home for many years. Then, Major Alan Gordon left the house and surrounding estate to the National Trust for Scotland when he died in 1957. The Scottish Baronial style was so out of fashion by then that some people even wanted to demolish the house!

There’s quite a bit to see downstairs. The restored rooms reflect the tastes and lives of the Gordon family in the 1930s. Upstairs, only a small section is open, but the Victorian kitchen, with its well-preserved utensils and layout, gave us a glimpse into domestic life from that bygone era.

Churn inside Threave House Kitchens
Outside Threave House

The Gardens Around Threave House

We all really enjoyed our visit and, although we’ve walked around the gardens before, we very much enjoyed wandering through them again. It’s also the only Scottish garden dedicated to the training of horticulturists. Since 1960, it’s been the proud home of the School of Heritage Gardening. As a result, there’s a wide variety of plants, flowers and styles in different areas of the garden.

Each ‘garden room’ showcases a different gardening style and planting scheme, and this time we found some areas that we’d missed before! 

The café has had a refresh since our last visit, and we enjoyed some delicious drinks and cakes.

If you have the chance to explore the house alongside the stunning gardens, don’t miss it!

Threave House Walled Garden

For more places to visit in the area, click here: Places to visit near Sandyhills, Dumfries & Galloway

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