Visit to Cowden Castle Japanese Garden
2025/10/27
On Monday 27th October, Consul General Katsutoshi Takeda paid a visit to the Cowden Castle Japanese Garden, which is in Clackmannanshire, around 30 miles northwest of Edinburgh.
Cowden Castle Japanese garden is Scotland’s biggest Japanese garden. After being completed 100 years ago, it was vandalised in the 1960s and left neglected and forgotten. Mrs Sara Stewart became the new owner in 2008, and started a project with Professor Masao Fukuhara and a team from Osaka University of Arts to revitalise the garden in 2013. The garden was reopened to the public in 2017, with maintenance on the pavilion continuing until it was fully restored in 2022.
On the day, which was blessed with good weather, Mrs Sara Stewart guided Consul General Takeda through the garden filled with fallen autumn leaves and talked about its troubled history and the Japanese people involved with its creation. Taki Handa, a garden design student studying abroad in the UK designed and constructed part of the garden in 1908, while landscape designer Jiju Suzuki and gardener Shinzaburo Matsuo helped with the garden’s upkeep afterwards. Consul General Takeda then heard the story of Professor Masao Fukuhara, who was involved in the restoration project.
Now that the restoration is finished, construction of a new lodge has begun and there are also plans to build a Japanese-style house as a visitor centre.
For more information about the Japanese Garden at Cowden please visit their website.
https://cowdengarden.com/
Cowden Castle Japanese garden is Scotland’s biggest Japanese garden. After being completed 100 years ago, it was vandalised in the 1960s and left neglected and forgotten. Mrs Sara Stewart became the new owner in 2008, and started a project with Professor Masao Fukuhara and a team from Osaka University of Arts to revitalise the garden in 2013. The garden was reopened to the public in 2017, with maintenance on the pavilion continuing until it was fully restored in 2022.
On the day, which was blessed with good weather, Mrs Sara Stewart guided Consul General Takeda through the garden filled with fallen autumn leaves and talked about its troubled history and the Japanese people involved with its creation. Taki Handa, a garden design student studying abroad in the UK designed and constructed part of the garden in 1908, while landscape designer Jiju Suzuki and gardener Shinzaburo Matsuo helped with the garden’s upkeep afterwards. Consul General Takeda then heard the story of Professor Masao Fukuhara, who was involved in the restoration project.
Now that the restoration is finished, construction of a new lodge has begun and there are also plans to build a Japanese-style house as a visitor centre.
For more information about the Japanese Garden at Cowden please visit their website.
https://cowdengarden.com/