Dunmore Pineapple

The Dunmore Pineapple is a folly at Dunmore Park in Stirlingshire, Scotland, near Airth. It was named "as the most bizarre building in Scotland". Dunmore Park, the historic seat of the Earls of Dunmore, has a huge country palace, Dunmore House, and grounds that feature two enormous walled gardens, among other things. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, walled gardens were a must for any great house in a northern climate, as a high stone or brick wall helped to shelter the garden from wind and frost, and could create a microclimate in which the ambient temperature could be raised several degrees above that of the surrounding landscape.

This enabled the growth of fruits and vegetables, as well as decorative plants that would not have survived otherwise so far north. Walled gardens occasionally comprised a single hollow, or double, wall containing furnaces, holes along the side facing the garden to let heat to escape, and chimneys or flues to pull smoke upwards. This was especially beneficial for fruit trees and grape vines, which could be planted even further north than the microclimate generated by a walled garden would ordinarily allow if cultivated within a few feet of a heated, south-facing wall. The Dunmore Pineapple is frequently cited as one of the best follies in the United Kingdom, including on lists compiled by the news aggregator Huffington Post, the environmental television series and magazine Countryfile, and gardener-presenter Alan Titchmarsh.

Location: Airth, Scotland