Dryburgh Abbey
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Hidden away in a U-bend in the Tweed, ten miles upstream from Kelso, the remains of Dryburgh Abbey (April-Sept daily 9.30am-6.30pm; Oct-March Mon-Sat 9.30am-4.30pm, Sun 2-4.30pm; HS; £2.80) occupy an idyllic position against a hilly backdrop, with ancient cedars, redwoods, beech and lime trees and wide lawns flattering the pinkish-red hues of the stonework. The Premonstratensians founded the abbey in the twelfth century, but they were never as successful as their Cistercian neighbours in Melrose. The romantic setting is second to none, but the ruins of the Abbey Church are much less substantial than, say, at Melrose or Jedburgh. Virtually nothing survives of the nave, but the transepts have fared better, their chapels now serving as private burial grounds for, among others, Sir Walter Scott and Field Marshal Haig, the World War I commander whose ineptitude cost thousands of soldiers' lives. The night stairs, down which the monks stumbled in the early hours of the morning, survive in the south transept, and lead even today to the monks' dormitory. Leaving the church via the east processional door in the south aisle, with its dog-tooth decoration, you enter the cloisters, the highlight of which is the barrel-vaulted Chapter House, complete with low stone benches and blind interlaced arcading.
Next door to the abbey is the Dryburgh Abbey Hotel (tel 01835/822261, www.dryburgh.co.uk; £110-150), a sprawling red-sandstone hotel that's a hunting, shooting, fishing kind of place. You can enjoy the indoor pool, or simply have a cup of tea or a drink in the bar. Dryburgh is not easy to get to by public transport, though it's only a mile's walk north from St Boswell's on the A68, and a pleasant three or four miles from Melrose. Drivers and cyclists should approach the abbey via the much-visited Scott's View, to the north on the B6356, overlooking the Tweed Valley, where the writer and his friends often picnicked and where Scott's horse stopped out of habit during the writer's own funeral procession. The scene inspired Joseph Turner's Melrose 1831, now on display in the National Gallery of Scotland.
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