Great Houses of the Scottish Borders

The journey begins at a house that met centuries of Border unrest, not with towers and garrisons, but with quiet defiance. Traquair has belonged to the Stewart family for over five hundred years, and holds among its treasures the bed, cradle and quilt of Mary, Queen of Scots, who visited in 1566. Its most famous feature says everything about how this house chose to survive: the Bear Gates, closed after Bonnie Prince Charlie's departure in 1745, will not open again, by family tradition, until a Stewart king sits on the throne once more. Today the house is in the hands of Catherine Maxwell Stuart, 21st Lady of Traquair and the first woman to hold the title. From here, guests continue south-east to Thirlestane Castle, home to the Maitland-Carew family, for the first of two nights.

The second morning is spent at Bowhill, principal Border seat of the Duke of Buccleuch and home to part of the Buccleuch Collection, one of the most important private art collections in Britain. Its walls hold works by Gainsborough, Reynolds, Canaletto and Claude, and the house has real literary pedigree too: Sir Walter Scott, a kinsman and frequent visitor, loved it enough to christen it 'Sweet Bowhill' in his 1805 poem The Lay of the Last Minstrel. Returning to Thirlestane in the afternoon, guests are free to take up the estate's activities: fishing on the River Leader, clay pigeon shooting, falconry, riding across the Border moors, or a spa treatment.

The tour turns east to Marchmont, a Grade A-listed Palladian mansion built in 1750–1755 for Hugh Hume-Campbell, 3rd Earl of Marchmont, to designs by William Adam. Although Marchmont was enlarged and modernised to the highest Edwardian standards under Sir Robert Lorimer in 1914–1917, the house retains many of its original Georgian features, and its interiors are some of the finest in Scotland. In the 2010s, Marchmont was restored to an astonishing standard by owners Oliver and Hugo Burge and received the 2018 Sotheby's Historic Houses Award for its restoration. Marchmont is now home to the Burges' cousin Henry Lakin and his wife Kinvara, and houses an internationally significant art and sculpture collection spanning Georgian, Pre-Raphaelite and modern British works. Marchmont is still very much a living and creative house and estate.

If the last four days have told the story of the Borders' defenders, Hesleyside tells the story of the raiders themselves. The Charlton family have held Hesleyside since the 14th century, as Border Reivers of the English Middle March. The house still keeps the Spur of the Charlton, a 16th-century spur once served to the head of the household on an empty platter, a wordless signal that it was time to ride out and take cattle from across the line. Hesleyside is home today to Anna and William Charlton, the latest generation of the same family recorded here since 1343. Built in 1719 on the site of an earlier pele tower, the house sits within parkland laid out by Capability Brown, in the Northumberland National Park beneath one of the best Dark Skies Reserves in England.