Abbotsford
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The stately home of Abbotsford (June-Sept daily 9.30am-5pm; mid-March to May & Oct Mon-Sat 9.30am-5pm, Sun 2-5pm; £4), three miles up the Tweed from Melrose, was designed to satisfy the Romantic inclinations of Sir Walter Scott, who lived here from 1812 until his death twenty years later. Abbotsford (as Scott chose to call it) took twelve years to evolve, with the fanciful turrets and castellations of the Scots Baronial exterior incorporating copies of medieval originals: the entrance porch imitates that of Linlithgow Palace and the screen wall in the garden echoes Melrose Abbey's cloister. Despite all the exterior pomp, the interior is surprisingly small and poky, with just six rooms open for viewing on the upper floor. Visitors start in the wood-panelled study, with its small writing desk made of salvage from the Spanish Armada, at which Scott banged out the Waverley novels at a furious rate. The heavy wood-panelled library boasts Scott's collection of more than nine thousand rare books and an extraordinary assortment of memorabilia, the centrepiece of which is Napoleon's pen case and blotting book, but which also includes Rob Roy's purse and skene dhu (knife), and the inlaid pearl crucifix that accompanied Mary, Queen of Scots to the scaffold. You can also see Henry Raeburn's famous portrait of Scott hanging in the drawing room, and all sorts of weapons - notably Rob Roy's sword, dagger and gun - in the armoury.
The fast and frequent Melrose-Galashiels bus provides easy access to Abbotsford: ask for the Tweedbank island on the A6091, from where the house is a ten-minute walk up the road.
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