SCOTLAND AND JAPAN
Japan today contains many traces of Scottish engagement and influence, and the same is true of Japanese influence in Scotland. Whether it is the playing of ‘Auld Lang Syne’ at the closing of bars and supermarkets, or the success of the giant Japanese whisky industry pioneered by Masataka Taketsuru (1894-1979), the scion of a sake brewing family who studied chemistry at the University of Glasgow and went on to found his own distilling company with the support of his wife Jessie ‘Rita’ Cowan (1896-1961) of Kirkintilloch, Scotland and Japan are more often blended together than one might expect.
Perhaps the most beautiful, peaceful and visible confluence is in the Japanese garden in Scotland. The Japanese garden has had more impact as an imported style than any other garden type since the union: sharing a rocky landscape and often damp climate, Scotland proved an accommodating location for Japanese garden styles. Charles Anstruther-Thomson (1855-1925), George Bullough (1870-1939), Osgood Mackenzie (1842-1912) and John Henry Dixon (1838-1926) all created notable Japanese gardens in Scotland, and Japanese practice was also influential on institutional gardens, such as the Cruickshank botanical garden at the University of Aberdeen. In 1911, the Scottish National Exhibition at Glasgow featured a Japanese tea garden next to its mock highland village, An Clachan. One of the most accessible survivors is the (now restored) garden created by Isabella (‘Ella’) Christie of Cowden (1861-1949), who broughtTaki Handa, originally from the Royal School of Garden Design at Nagoya, to lay out a garden over almost three hectares in Clackmannanshire, Shã Raku En, ‘the place of pleasure and delight’, in the first decade of the 20th century. It has been dubbed the best in theWest by at least one Japanese expert.
