Benmore Botanic Garden (formerly known as the Younger Botanic Garden) is a large botanical garden situated in Strath Eachaig at the foot of Beinn Mhòr, on the Cowal peninsula, in Argyll and Bute, Scotland. The gardens are on the west side of the A815 road from Dunoon, between the Holy Loch and Loch Eck, and include footbridges across the River Eachaig. It is one of the sites of Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh. Features include a Redwood Avenue of Giant Sequoias planted in 1863, large square walled gardens, a waterfall, a fernery, ponds and walks up the hillside to where you can look out across the Holy Loch. The garden is located within the Argyll Forest Park, which is itself within the Loch Lomond and The Trossachs National Park. History Most of Cowal, originally Clan Lamont territory, was taken over by Clan Campbell, including lands in Strath Echaig shortly after 1400. The area once called "Innasraugh", meaning "the sheltered valley", was part of the hunting grounds of the Dukes of Argyll, belonging to the Campbells of Ballochyle. It was reached by a ford across the River Eachaig at Uig, near modern Eckford house. Around 1820, Ross Wilson introduced tree planting with the first known coniferous plantation of forest trees in Cowal. In 1849 the estate was bought by John Lamont, a wealthy sugar planter and slaveowner in Trinidad who had emigrated from Toward (near Dunoon) 48 years earlier. He arranged replacement of the previous manor house with the larger Benmore House, but died in 1850, a year before the house was completed. His nephew James Lamont inherited the estate, but then sold it and it went to various other owners in succession. Benmore Estate was bought in 1862 by James Piers Patrick, a wealthy American who carried out extensive work to Benmore House, including construction of the tower, designed in the Scottish baronial style by the architect Charles Wilson. He developed the garden, and in 1863 planted the Redwood Avenue of Giant Sequoias. In 1870 the Greenock sugar refiner and philanthropist James Duncan bought Benmore Estate, which he extended to include the adjacent Kilmun and Bernice Estates. He arranged extensive plantings in the grounds, including more than six million trees around the estate, and added paths leading up a ravine to the south on the east side of the road, making Puck's Glen a scenic attraction. He extended the east wing