Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
THE HEART OF ROBERT THE BRUCE
Legend has it that the heart of
Robert I
is buried here (his body having been buried at
Dunfermline Abbey), and in 1997, when a heart cask was publicly exhumed, this theory
received an unexpected boost. However, the burial location was not in accordance with
Bruce's own wishes. In 1329, the dying king told his friend, Sir James Douglas, to carry his heart
on a Crusade to the Holy Land in fulfilment of an old vow: “Seeing therefore, that my body
cannot go to achieve what my heart desires, I will send my heart instead of my body, to
accomplish my vow.” Douglas tried his best, but was killed fighting the Moors in Spain - and
Bruce's heart ended up in Melrose. A new commemorative stone marks its current resting
place in the chapterhouse, north of the sacristy.
2
garden's Georgian villa while the borders and vegetable plots form a seductive
foreground to the abbey and Eildon Hills, which rise beyond the garden walls.
Dryburgh Abbey
Dryburgh village; 6 miles southeast of Melrose, off the B6356 • Daily: April-Sept 9.30am-5.30pm; Oct-March 9.30am-4.30pm • £5; HS
Hidden away in a U-bend in the Tweed, the remains of
Dryburgh Abbey
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. he
Premonstratensians, or White Canons, founded the abbey in the twelfth century, but
they were never as successful - or apparently as devout - as their Cistercian neighbours in
Melrose. heir chronicles detail interminable disputes about land and money: one story
relates how a fourteenth-century canon called Marcus flattened the abbot with his fist.
he 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.
Scott's View
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. he scene inspired J.M.W. Turner's
Melrose
(1831), now on display
in the National Gallery of Scotland (see p.76).
Abbotsford
B6360, 2 miles west of Melrose • Daily: April-Sept 10am-5pm, Oct-March 10am-4pm • £8.75 •
T
01896 752043,
W
scottsabbotsford.co.uk
A stately home designed to satisfy the romantic inclinations of Sir Walter Scott,
Abbotsford
was home to the writer from 1812 until his death twenty years later. Built
on the site of a farmhouse Scott bought and subsequently demolished, 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. Scott was proud of his
folie de grandeur
, writing to a
friend, “It is a kind of conundrum castle to be sure [which] pleases a fantastic person in
style and manner.” hat said, it was undoubtedly one of the chief causes of Scott's
subsequent bankruptcy.
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
FROM TOP
MOUNTAIN BIKER, GLENTRESS FOREST
P.131
; VIEW OF ST ABB'S HEAD
P.116
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