Brodie Castle & Estate

After inheriting Brodie Castle in 1899, Ian Brodie bred over 400 varieties of daffodils in the castle’s walled garden, and the names he chose for them give interesting insights into his life, travels, interests and family history. Cultivars called Gallipoli and Red Sea reflect his travels during World War One; Mozart references his interest in opera; Elgin, Tain, Dallas and Coulmony refer to nearby places and estates; and Breda was the town where his ancestor Alexander negotiated between the Scottish government and King Charles II in 1630.

When the Trust acquired Brodie Castle in 1979, there were fewer than 20 of Ian Brodie’s cultivars still blooming in the garden. But since then, our gardeners have restored the collection, tracking them down from all over the world. We now have over 100 Brodie cultivars here.

The peak time to enjoy Brodie’s daffodils is from late March to early May. Later in the spring, as specific cultivars multiply and thicken, our gardening team and volunteers carefully lift and thin thousands of bulbs, and dry them out in slatted racks in Ian Brodie’s Daffodil Shed, which was restored in 2023-2024.

Excess bulbs are sold or shared with other gardens. This sharing and distribution is an important part of conserving Brodie and the UK’s daffodil heritage – if one collection is struck by disease or pests such as the narcissus fly, there will still be other bulbs preserved elsewhere.

If climbing on a 6.5 metre bunny sculpture or a giant table and chair is not your thing, the garden itself is splendid. Depending on when you visit, you could admire borders ablaze with alliums, rudbeckia and asters, and walk through areas of beautiful pictorial meadow. In our kitchen garden, we grow fruit and vegetables for our café and garden sales cart, and our orchard has photogenic Victorian and Edwardian apple trees with glorious evocative names like Worcester Pearmain, Norfolk Royal, King of the Pippins and Lord Lamborne.

One of the Brodie team’s own favourites in the walled garden is our ‘handkerchief tree’, which you’ll find near the southern shrubbery wall, leading to the castle. In springtime, the tree’s white bracts (a type of leaf which grows at the base of a flower to protect the bud and help attract pollinators) look like handkerchiefs fluttering in the wind. It’s also known as a dove tree or a ghost tree, for the same reason.

And while we are carefully conserving and sharing Brodie’s heritage around the estate, the gardens and designed landscapes are changing and evolving all the time. The pictorial meadow was created in 2023, on the site of the old daffodil beds at the top of the Playful Garden, and the design is based on the George Brown 1770 Brodie estate map, which shows paths radiating towards the pond and serpentine paths near the castle.

Other recent work has included replanting Brodie’s grand Cathedral Avenue with young lime trees, replacing trees that fell victim to honey fungus. 

Beyond the walled garden

There’s more to discover in Brodie’s wider estate, too. As you enter through the front gates, you may spot Rodney’s Stone, our Pictish standing stone with a cross on one side and symbols on the other. At 2 metres high and 1 metre wide, it’s hard to miss. It was discovered in a nearby churchyard in the 1780s, having also been used as a grave slab.

We also have a variety of woodland walks and nature hides around the estate, where you may spot red squirrels, deer and even otters, as well as ducks, woodpeckers and birds of prey, depending on the time of year. Spring, summer, autumn and winter, there’s always something to see in Brodie’s gardens and estate, whatever your age or interests.