ISBN: 0300 10702 1
The Scottish Borders has some of the most romantic countryside in Scotland, ranging from rocky coastline to rolling moors and farmland. Its early buildings reflect a history of conflict, expressed in the plethora of castle strongholds and tower houses of the Anglo-Scottish Wars and their aftermath, from the spare remains of Hume Castle to the awesome towers of Hermitage Castle and Neidpath and the Renaissance mansions at Cowdenknowes and Ferniehirst. As much a testament to a turbulent past are the ruins of the great Borders abbeys – Coldstream, Drybugh, Kelso, Melrose and Selkirk – a concentration almost without equal in Britain, while more modest medieval survivals are numerous among the small rural parish churches. Through the Border counties loops the River Tweed, which provides the delightful setting for the burghs of Peebles, Galashiels, Melrose and Kelso. Here are fine Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian public buildings alongside the remains of the once mighty textile industry, ranging from small weavers’ cottages to colossal nineteenth-century mills. Country houses, of exceptional variety and quality, include some of the most important houses in the Scotland: from Thirlestane Castle, with its interiors of royal pretension, Traquair, perhaps the ideal of Scottish architecture, Palladian grandeur at Paxton, the stunning Adam interiors of Mellerstain, Baronial wit at Playfair’s Floors Castle, Ducal comfort at Bowhill and Edwardian opulence at Manderston. One man above all, however, has set his stamp: Sir Walter Scott, whose home, Abbotsford, is of world reknown as the fount of nineteenth-century Scottish Romanticism. Its atmospheric interior, rich in antiquarian relics, is one of the earliest to have been designed to receive tourists. The guide also seeks out little-known shooting and fishing lodges, rural steadings, Arts and Crafts villas, Art Deco schools and even the extraordinary Sunderland House, a building of Miesian purity by Peter Womersley. Such ingredients make the Borders architecturally one of the most enticing regions of Scotland.
