Abbotsford House

The fantastical Scots Baronial home of Sir Walter Scott

Abbotsford was Sir Walter Scott's home for the last twenty years of his life, the place where he wrote most of his novels and assembled an extraordinary cabinet of curiosities — Rob Roy's gun, Napoleon's pen-case, a fragment of oatcake from Bonnie Prince Charlie's saddlebag, the original keys of Loch Leven Castle. The house itself is a Scots Baronial fantasia of turrets, panelling, and carved oak, modelled by Scott from Border tower houses and the imagination that filled his novels.

A modern visitor centre handles tickets and a good cafe; the house is shown by timed entry. Three kilometres west of Melrose, easily reached by car, on foot via the riverside path, or by bus.

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A story
Sir Walter Scott bought a small Tweed-side farm called Cartleyhole in 1811 and spent the rest of his life turning it into Abbotsford — a fantasy of Scots Baronial turrets, library, and armoury that almost single-handedly invented the tartan-and-castle image of Scotland. The bankruptcy that followed nearly killed him; the books he wrote to clear the debt, including Ivanhoe, became the bestsellers of their age. He died in the dining room in 1832 with the windows open onto the river.

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