ABSTRACT
One of the characteristic features of Lowland Scotland's rural landscape from the mid-seventeenth century has been the tower house or mansion surrounded by walled gardens, tree-lined rectangular enclosures, or less formal policies. This chapter provides a general outline of the development of the policies of landed estates between 1600 and 1850. Impressionistic descriptions of the principal mansions and their policies are to be found in the published tours of Scotland, primarily made by English visitors. Despite the considerable rebuilding taking place in Lowland Scotland through the first half of the seventeenth century, it was only from 1660 that a fully developed Renaissance classicism was established, and the nobility began to build true mansion houses. AtDunrobin (Sutherland), early-nineteenth-century expenditure on woods and nurseries varied from almost nothing to more than 750 per annum, while improvements to mansion and policies between 1810 and 1815 involved an average expenditure of over 1,800 a year.
