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Scottish
Borders Buildings
Borders:
Buildings of Scotland (Pevsner Buildings of Scotland S.)
The Scottish Borders have some of the most romantic countryside
in Scotland, ranging from rocky coastline to rolling moors and
farmland. The early buildings reflect a history of conflict,
expressed in the plethora of castle strongholds and tower houses
of the Anglo-Scottish Wars and their aftermath. As much a testament
to a turbulent past are the ruins of the great Borders abbeys,
a concentration almost without equal in Britain. The River Tweed
provides the delightful setting for the burghs of Peebles, Galashiels,
Melrose and Kelso. Here are fine Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian
public buildings alongside the remains of the once mighty textile
industry, ranging from small weavers' cottages to colossal nineteenth-century
mills. Country houses of exceptional quality and importance
include Thirlestane Castle, with its interiors of royal pretension;
Traquair, perhaps the ideal of Scottish architecture; Palladian
grandeur at Paxton; the stunning Adam interiors of Mellerstain;
baronial wit at Playfair's Floors Castle; ducal comfort at Bowhill
and Edwardian opulence at Manderston. One man above all, however,
has set his stamp: Sir Walter Scott, whose home, Abbotsford,
is of world reknown as the fount of nineteenth-century Scottish
Romanticism. Its atmospheric interior, rich in antiquarian relics,
is one of the earliest to have been designed to receive tourists.
This comprehensive and revealing guide also seeks out little-known
shooting and fishing lodges, rural steadings, Arts and Crafts
villas, Art Deco schools and even the extraordinary Sunderland
House, a building of Miesian purity by Peter Womersley. Such
ingredients make the Borders one of the most architecturally
enticing regions of Scotland. Scottish
Borders Buildings.
Return
To Tour Scottish Borders
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