Abbotsford

Abbotsford, the seat of Sir Walter Scott, stands on the south bank of the Tweed, a little above its confluence with Gala Water, and 2 miles W. of Melrose. Before it became, in 1811, Sir Walter's property, the site of the house and grounds formed the small farm of 'Clarty Hole'; and the poet devised the new name, loving thus to connect himself with the days when Melrose abbots forded the Tweed. On this spot, a sloping bank overhanging the river, with the Selkirk hills behind, he built a small villa, now the western wing of the mansion. In 1817-24, he added the other portions of the building, on no set plan, but with the desire of combining in it some of the features (and even actual remains) of those ancient works of Scottish architecture which he most venerated. The result was that picturesque and irregular pile, aptly characterised as 'a romance in stone and lime.' The property passed to Mr Hope-Scott, who married the novelist's granddaughter, and again in 1874, by marriage, to the Hon. Mr Maxwell-Scott. See Washington Irving's Abbotsford (1835).