The Queen has reopened
Abbotsford, Sir Walter Scott's home in the Borders
The Queen keeps Scott’s majesty alive in the Borders
In his day, Walter Scott did
more than anyone to bind Scotland and the monarchy, so it is fitting the Queen
should reopen his home, Abbotsford
Sir Walter Scott died in September 1832, and was buried in
the ruined Dryburgh Abbey. One hundred and fifty years later, a service of
commemoration was held there. We had recently come to live in the Borders and
went along, taking our black labrador, Smith, with us. As the congregation
dispersed, two ladies approached and one said, “ You’ve brought your dog. Quite
right too! Sir Walter would have been delighted.” They were Patricia and Jean
Maxwell-Scott, Sir Walter’s great-great-great granddaughters, who still lived
in the house he had built, his beloved Abbotsford, and cared for both the house
and his memory devotedly.
In time they died, first Patricia and then Dame Jean, and
nobody knew what was to become of Abbotsford, for there was no other family
member able to shoulder the cost of its upkeep. Abbotsford had long been open
to the public, but visitor numbers had fallen from a high of around 80,000 a year to little
more than 30,000. Moreover, the building required extensive structural repairs.
Eventually, the executors of Dame Jean’s estate formed a
trust. They needed £10 million for the work and for the construction of a
visitor centre, and another £3 million for an endowment, so that, as Andrew
Douglas-Home, one of the trustees, explained to me, Abbotsford could be
self-financing and “not a burden on the public purse”.
The money for the work was raised, but they are still £2.4
million short of the sum needed for the endowment. Nevertheless the work has
been done. The house, both the part built by Scott himself and the Victorian
wing added by his granddaughter and her husband Sir James Hope-Scott, is now in
prime order; and the visitor centre, which offers an interpretation of Scott’s
life and work, along with a coffee bar and fine restaurant, has been built.
It’s a tremendous achievement.
On Wednesday, Abbotsford was formally and appropriately
reopened by Her Majesty the Queen. Formally, because formality is right on such
occasions, and the Queen was attended by members of her bodyguard in Scotland,
the Company of Archers, whose forest-green uniform was designed by Scott
himself; appropriately, because the Queen in her youth had been a guest of
Patricia and Jean at Abbotsford, and because Scott, by organising the visit of
George IV to Scotland in 1822, the first time a reigning monarch had come north
since the 17th century, had done more than anyone to bind Scotland and the
monarchy together.
So it was a splendid and happy occasion, a blend of
formality and informality as is our style in the Borders. There were some 550
guests, all local, and the mix was eclectic, ranging from a duke and a marquis,
Knights of the Thistle, a sprinkling of politicians and such like, to mere
scribblers. The young men who this summer carry the standard in the Common
Ridings of Selkirk, where Scott was sheriff, and Galashiels and Melrose, were
among those present. Sir Walter would have approved of that, too.
Abbotsford matters. It matters obviously to the Borders, and
not only as the region’s prime tourist attraction. It matters to Scotland
because Scott is our greatest writer, and knowing Abbotsford helps you to get
to know and understand him. It matters to the United Kingdom because Scott was
a British, as well as Scottish, patriot, who wrote of England as “our sister
and ally”, and because his cultural influence throughout the Victorian Age was
immeasurable – Kenneth Clark called the Houses of Parliament “a Waverley novel
in stone”. It matters to the world because Scott was “the father of the
European novel”.
Finally, it matters because his rich and complicated spirit
still seems to breathe there. You come close to Walter Scott as you stroll
through the rooms where he lived and worked. Patricia and Jean, who cared so
tenderly for the house and his memory, can rest happy.
 |
| The last of his direct descendants to inhabit
Abbotsford was his great-great-great-granddaughter Dame Jean Maxwell-Scott (8
June 1923 - 5 May 2004). She inherited it from her elder sister Patricia in
1998. The sisters turned the house into one of Scotland's premier tourist
attractions after they had to rely on paying visitors to afford the upkeep of
the house. |
Opening dates and times
House and Gardens
1st April – 30th September,
10am – 5pm
1st October – 30th November,
10am – 4pm
Last entry one hour before closing time
Visitor Centre
Open all year
(excluding 25th – 26th December
and 1st – 2nd January)
1st April – 30th September,
10am – 5pm
1st October – 31st March,
10am – 4pm
Last orders for the restaurant one hour before closing time
Admission: Free
Abbotsford is a historic country house in the Scottish Borders,
at the town of Galashiels, near Melrose, on the south bank of the River Tweed.
It was formerly the residence of historical novelist and poet, Walter Scott(Sir
Walter Scott,Bt). It is a Category A Listed Building.
The nucleus of the estate was a small farm of 100 acres (0.40 km2),
called Cartleyhole, nicknamed Clarty (i.e., muddy) Hole, and was bought by
Scott on the lapse of his lease (1811) of the neighbouring house of Ashestiel.
He first built a small villa and named it Abbotsford, creating the name from a
ford nearby where previously abbots of Melrose Abbey used to cross the river.
Scott then built additions to the house and made it into a mansion, building
into the walls many sculptured stones from ruined castles and abbeys of
Scotland. In it he gathered a large library, a collection of ancient furniture,
arms and armour, and other relics and curiosities, especially connected with
Scottish history, notably the Celtic Torrs Pony-cap and Horns and the Woodwrae
Stone, all now in the Museum of Scotland.
The last and principal acquisition was that of Toftfield
(afterwards named Huntlyburn), purchased in 1817. The new house was then begun
and completed in 1824.
Ground plan of Abbotsford House.
The general ground-plan is a parallelogram, with irregular
outlines, one side overlooking the Tweed; and the style is mainly the Scottish
Baronial. Into various parts of the fabric were built relics and curiosities
from historical structures, such as the doorway of the old Tolbooth in
Edinburgh.
Scott had only enjoyed his residence one year when (1825) he
met with that reverse of fortune which involved the estate in debt. In 1830 the
library and museum were presented to him as a free gift by the creditors. The
property was wholly disencumbered in 1847 by Robert Cadell, the publisher, who
cancelled the bond upon it in exchange for the family's share in the copyright
of Sir Walter's works.
Scott's only son Walter did not live to enjoy the property,
having died on his way from India in 1847. Among subsequent possessors were
Scott's son-in-law, John Gibson Lockhart, J. R. Hope Scott, QC, and his
daughter (Scott's great-granddaughter), the Hon. Mrs Maxwell Scott.
The house was opened to the public in 1833, but continued to
be occupied by Scott's descendants until 2004. The last of his direct
descendants to inhabit Abbotsford was his great-great-great-granddaughter Dame
Jean Maxwell-Scott (8 June 1923 - 5 May 2004). She inherited it from her elder
sister Patricia in 1998. The sisters turned the house into one of Scotland's
premier tourist attractions after they had to rely on paying visitors to afford
the upkeep of the house. It had electricity installed only in 1962. Dame Jean
was at one time a lady-in-waiting to Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester,
patron of the Dandie Dinmont Club, a breed of dog named after one of Sir Walter
Scott's characters; and a horse trainer, one of whose horses, Sir Wattie,
ridden by Ian Stark, won two silver medals at the 1988 Summer Olympics in
Seoul, South Korea.
Scottish Borders Council is considering an application by a
property developer to build a housing estate on the opposite bank of the River
Tweed from Abbotsford, to which Historic Scotland and the National Trust for
Scotland object.
Sir Walter Scott rescued the "jougs" from Threave
Castle in Dumfries and Galloway and attached them to the castellated gateway he
built at Abbotsford.
As Sheriff-Depute of Selkirkshire, Scott needed to spend
part of the year in easy reach of the courtroom in Selkirk, so he spent legal
terms in Edinburgh and legal vacations in the country. For a few years he
rented a house at Ashestiel from a cousin, but in 1811 he bought his own
‘mountain farm’, as he described it, ‘on a bare haugh and bleak bank by the
side of the Tweed’. It was called Newarthaugh on the deeds, but was Cartleyhole
(and sometimes ‘Clarty Hole’) to local people. He immediately renamed it
Abbotsford, after the ford across the Tweed below the house used in former
times by the monks of Melrose Abbey.
Scott was in such a hurry to turn his bare bank into a
paradise that he was already planting trees before taking full possession in
May 1811. The existing farmhouse was small for a man with four children.
Nevertheless, Scott’s first priority was not to enlarge the house but to
acquire more land from his neighbours. With money flowing in from his poetry
and early novels, he was able within a few years to expand the estate from 110 acres to 1400. At the
same time he made some small improvements to the house, most of which were
swept away by later stages of building. The stables which he built still
survive, but not the kitchen, laundry and spare rooms housed in a building
across the courtyard.
At no time was there a grand plan for the creation of
Abbotsford. Scott’s initial intention was to keep the Cartleyhole farmhouse and
add a few rooms to give his family more space. Abbotsford was not to be a
mansion. Rambling, whimsical and picturesque were the expressions he used at
different times to describe it.
So he filled in the courtyard to the west of the farmhouse
with a Study, a Dining Room, an Armoury (which he referred to as his ‘Boudoir’)
and a conservatory; the last of these has since been demolished. On the floors
above there were two bedrooms, three dressing-rooms and three attic rooms.
Below the main rooms were basement kitchens with windows looking out towards
the Tweed. The new Dining Room was first used on the 8th of October 1818, but
for dancing rather than dinner, as the carpentry work was still in progress.
Several professional architects, craftsmen, dilettante
designers and friends contributed ideas and sketches. These included the
architect Edward Blore, the cabinet-maker George Bullock and Scott’s friends,
the artist James Skene and the actor Daniel Terry. But the principal architect
was William Atkinson, who was responsible later for the remodelling of Chequers
in Buckinghamshire. The building firm for the first phase at Abbotsford was
Sanderson & Paterson of Galashiels. The interiors were decorated by David
Ramsay Hay of Edinburgh, who later redecorated the Palace of Holyroodhouse for
Queen Victoria.
By 1818 Scott was already talking of adding a library. Money
continued to pour in from his writing and he took the opportunity of lengthy
visits to London in 1819 and 1820 to discuss plans for a new phase of building
work with Atkinson. The old farmhouse was to be demolished to make room for a
large rectangular building housing an Entrance Hall, a new Study, a Library and a Drawing Room. John Smith of Darnick, a
local stonemason, was eventually hired as the principal builder and Scott again
acted as his own clerk of works. Windows, doors and woodwork were manufactured
in London and much of the furniture and furnishings were acquired there too, either
from Bullock’s workshop or from purchases made on Scott’s behalf by Daniel
Terry. The cottage was pulled down in January 1822 and the new library, though
not quite complete, was ready enough to be used as the venue for a Christmas
ball in 1824. The drawing room too was in use for some time before the
fireplace was installed and its distinctive, hand-painted wallpaper from China
was hung.
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