For a long time we have wanted to visit the garden at Little Sparta near Glasgow, so when holidaying nearby we just had to pay it a visit. Often places you have waited for with high expectations turn out to be less than you hope for but Little Sparta proved to be more than expected. Jude and I visited with our son and daughter-in-law, Jamie and Sam and our granddaughter Arabella, a twenty-month old garden and nature lover.
Little Sparta is the garden created by artist Ian Hamilton Finlay (1925-2006). It was started 50 years ago, created from the natural landscape and is described in the leaflet given to garden visitors as “a beautiful and shaded place, with trees, flower beds, running streams, bridges, ponds and paths, which lead you past more than 200 artworks many of them carved with inscriptions that will take you into the world of classical Greece and Rome, poetry and philosophy, but also the French Revolution, naval ships, armed conflict and weapons of war.”
So we arrived with expectations of surprises and originality.
We parked in the tiny carpark and followed a rough gravel track for almost half a mile up the slope to the garden entrance. We can’t remember visiting many gardens without vehicle access at least reasonably close. The walk up took us through beautiful Scottish farmland complete with sheep and cattle.
The gateway presented a warm welcome but was somewhat of a trick as it was not the actual entrance to the garden which was a short distance along the stone wall.
With every turn of a path new and very varied vistas presented themselves, close tight places and larger open landscapes.
Surprises in the form of stone sculptures and stone calligraphy add to the delight of this garden and help us understand its designer.
A real surprise was a fruit and veg patch which had the feel of a true old-fashioned allotment.
greenbenchramblings 
One reply on “A family holiday to Scotland – Part 3- Little Sparta”
We loved it. I think it was the human scale with so much , often hidden to be discovered,in some quite small garden rooms. Classical sculpture and architecture can often overwhelm yet here it is made human and poetic.
Sometimes photographs can flatter but here the whole experience is so much more powerful than your wonderful book, which you had lent us earlier in the year, can possibly convey.