Kate Smith is one of a team of two gardeners who now work the Raasay House Walled Garden after many years of neglect. The house itself has had an interesting history - built originally in the 1500s, it was burnt down by government troops after Culloden. Shortly after, in 1747, the building of the new Raasay House was begun, and in 1773, Dr Samuel Johnson and James Boswell stayed here as guests of the Macleod chief of Raasay. In his Tour to the Hebrides, James Boswell writes, ‘The approach to Raasay was very pleasing. We saw before us a beautiful bay, well defended by a rocky coast; a good family mansion; a fine verdure about it, with a considerable number of trees; and beyond it the hills and mountains in gradation of wildness.’
