THE Scottish Borders is a green and gentle place of rolling hills, rich farmland and historic stone towns on the northern bank of the fine fishing river Tweed, the name of which, indeed, means ‘border’. The area is home to some of Scotland’s greatest estates and grandest houses, whose owners also built fine, smaller country houses, each with its own distinctive Borders character.
One such is Category A-listed Crailing House, which overlooks Oxnam Water, four miles north-east of Jedburgh; for centuries, the ledge on which it sits stood guard over the bridge linking Jedburgh with Kelso, 11 miles away.
The striking Regency-style house was built in 1803 for James Paton of the East India Company, by the Scottish architect William Elliot, still well regarded in the Borders for the elegance and simplicity of his Georgian buildings. Generally recognised as one of his most sophisticated works, Crailing House remained in the hands of the Paton family until 1948, when Peter Kerr, 12th Marquis of Lothian, bought it and commissioned the Scottish architect Reginald Fairlie to reconfigure the interior.
Having been let to a long-term tenant of the Monteviot estate, the house was in need of substantial repair when, in 2009, James Denne of Knight Frank oversaw its sale to the impressionist and writer Rory Bremner (Interview, October 11, 2017) and his sculptor wife, Tessa Campbell Fraser.
The couple, who were both born in Edinburgh, were looking to return to Tessa’s Borders roots with their young daughters, Ava and Lila. Tessa had visited the house as a child and, seeing it again, she and her husband fell in love with it.
Denne historien er fra November 13, 2019-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra November 13, 2019-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
