Traquair House

http://portal.historic-scotland.gov.uk/designations

Type of Site

Long-established country seat developed from former royal hunting grounds and late medieval tower house, and retaining some 17th to 18th-century landscape design features and infrastructure. Contains one of the largest hedged mazes in Scotland (planted 1981).

Location and Setting

Located one mile (1.5km) south of Innerleithen, this relatively small designed landscape is set within the upland valley landscape of the middle Tweed. Enclosed by the strong relief of steep hill-sides, the policies themselves occupy flat ground, immediately to the south of the Tweed. Traquair House itself stands at the centre of the designed landscape, a scenically prominent structure in a park and woodland setting, and most famously appreciated from along the length of a formal, tree-lined avenue. In local landscape views, the upland terrain beyond forms a striking and contrasting backdrop for the house, trees, gardens and avenue. The Quair Water, a Special Area of Conservation, flows through the designed landscape to meet the Tweed. The elongated Well Pool immediately to the north west of Traquair House, meanwhile, is believed to reflect the former course of the Tweed before it was re-routed and straightened in the 17th century (Hardy 1881: 485; Strang 1994: 226). Encompassing a total of 68ha (168ac), the designed landscape is bounded by the Tweed to the north, and local roads to the east and west. The small village of Traquair lies immediately to the south.

Landscape Components

Architectural Features

Traquair House is an important harled rubble Scottish Domestic mansion comprising a 3-storey plus attic main block with 2, lower, flanking wings arranged around a forecourt. Erected on the site of an earlier royal residence at the end of the 15th century, the original tower house was enlarged and developed during the mid-16th to 17th century to form the character of the present house. Key features include steeply-pitched roofs, exposed sandstone dressings around small windows, and an array of circular angle-turrets, mostly added in 1599. Significant works by James Smith, 1695-9, include the lower, office wings either side of the forecourt, and the garden terrace along the east front, which terminates in ogee-roofed garden pavilions, c.1700. Smith's screen wall across the courtyard incorporates a central gateway with wrought iron gates, over which extends an ornate scroll overthrow of tulips, roses and the Stuart of Traquair shield. A long, straight entrance avenue leads to the courtyard. At the entrance, are the closed, wrought-iron bear gates, 1737-8, with stone carved bears on the gatepiers, 1745-6, and with flanking, single-storey lodges and nearby cottages. At the termination of the avenue, closer to the house, are the exedra, a pair of curved stone walls c.1738 that terminate in rounded piers and which exhibit some surviving statuary. A later entrance drive, formed in the 19th century passes the East Lodge, a two-storey hybrid Picturesque/Tudor Gothic lodge, 1880-1, before crossing the Quair Water via a two-span bridge of the same date. Harled and random-rubble boundary walls demarcate the edge of the policies. Closer to the house are a range of garden and estate buildings, including a circular-plan, wattle and heather summerhouse, built 1834, and a three-sided, rectangular walled garden, with rubble-built walls and doorway with lintel dated 1749. Partially within this enclosure is a garden house (now brewers house), a vernacular 3-bay, single-storey cottage, c.1749, with 19th-and 20th-century improvements. Of similar date and style are the nearby tea-room, and the estate office, both of which also formerly provided accommodation for estate workers. Craft workshops, immediately to the north east, comprise a collection of rectangular, vernacular outbuildings, built from whinstone rubble for stabling, carts, and bothy accommodation c.1749.

Drives and Approaches

The formal avenue leading from the closed bear gates to the main front elevation of Traquair House remains one of the strongest landscape design components of the policies. In place by the mid-18th century, its function as an entrance approach was short-lived. Among the different recorded traditions on the closed gates, or 'Steekit Yetts', the most frequently-cited claims that after a visit by Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie), the gates were closed with the express order that they should only be opened after a Stuart was returned to the throne. Lined with mature sycamores planted in the 19th century, the grassed-over avenue remains important for channelling views to and from the house. Interestingly, Roy's map of the mid 18th century shows a continuation of the avenue on the other side of the house, towards the Tweed to the north-east. Although probably removed by the earlier 19th century, a ford and footbridge over the Quair still afforded access from this direction during the mid to later 19th century (OS 1855-8, Hardy 1881: 482-3).

Today, there are two main approaches. From the west, an entrance drive leads to the house, running parallel to the avenue on its south side. From the east, the later 19th-century drive, with its gateway, lodge and bridge, built 1880-1, marks a departure from formality. It curves downhill through woodland before crossing the Quair, and arriving at the lawn in front of the house.

Parkland

Long woodland-fringed parks are situated along the Quair in the south of the designed landscape, and immediately north of the avenue. They retain the structure depicted on the 1st edition OS maps (1855-8 OS), and contain mixed deciduous trees that display a good age range, including both 19th and 20th century specimens. The roundel in the park to the north of the avenue is enclosed by a wall, while those along the Quair were added for game cover in the second half of the 19th century. The field known as Moffat Allers Wood, to the north west of Traquair House, is bounded to the south by a row of attractive veteran oak.

Woodland

The present distribution of woodland plantations at Traquair reflects a layout achieved by the mid to later 19th century. Supplemented with 20th-century planting, this structure endures today. It comprises peripheral belts and blocks of trees, (mostly deciduous on the east, and mostly coniferous to the west), and core mixed woods around the house, Well Pool and along the East Drive. The woodland around the east drive was established during the second half of the 19th century, and is notable for its tall conifer specimens that project above the surrounding mixed deciduous canopy. A Noble fir and Douglas fir have achieved a particularly impressive size and stature. (www.treeregister.org ). Planting here took place on the sites of earlier working areas, including part of the old orchard, and a bleachfield, both depicted on the 1st edition OS map, (1855-8, OS 25'). Visible remains of rubble walls and gatepiers, rubble-built structures and a canal associated with the bleachfield can still be seen within the woods. A woodland trail passes through the core woods around the east drive and leads along the Quair Water; by tradition, a favourite of Lady Louisa Stewart in the 19th century (www.traquair.org ). By the footpath, a copse of yews includes four gnarled and twisted heritage trees known as the Traquair House Yews, estimated to be more than 400 years old (www.bordersforesttrust.org ).

The Gardens

Little remains of the formal gardens that once adorned the house. Along the east front, only the double-terraces and ogee-roofed pavilions survive from a more extensive scheme devised by James Smith, c.1700 (Cruft et al 2006: 735). This scheme almost certainly included a parterre garden, and a schematic drawing of the late 17th century suggests the former presence of fountains with piped water supply (copy held by RCAHMS). Along the south, a continuation of the terrace includes a garden doorway, while on the west front, surviving decorative fixtures leading to the forecourt include the distinctive screen wall, gates and exedra (curving stone walls with statuary). These give some sense of the original formal layout of the late 17th to early 18th century, which was designed to promote an impression of symmetry and grandeur.

Other garden elements date from later periods, and contain a mixture of 19th-and 20th-century features. The most striking component today is the square maze, located immediately below the east front terraces. Designed by John Schofield and planted in 1981, it is one of the largest hedged mazes in Scotland (www.traquair.co.uk ). With four sub-centres, and final end-point in the centre, it is defined partly by high Leyland cypress hedging, and partly by beech, planted in the early 1980s to replace plants killed during a harsh winter. Immediately to the south of the house, Cupid's Garden provides a fairly secluded garden setting, delimited by high beech hedges, and featuring simple, rectangular box-lined beds. This garden leads south and east to the croquet lawn; an expanse of well-maintained grass adorned with 19th-century specimen trees, including a fine Douglas fir, and the restored and relocated summerhouse, dated 1834. The children's playground is a more recent addition, while a rectangular area between this garden and the maze is retained mostly as rough grazing.

Walled Garden

The rectangular walled garden is no longer in traditional horticultural use, but remains part of the garden grounds open to the public at Traquair. Its doorway bears the date 1749, and the enclosure as a whole is depicted on Roy's Military Survey map of 1747-55. This map depicts a seemingly formal, complex interior arrangement, focused on a single central feature, such as a statue, sundial or fountain. By the mid-19th century, however, the walled garden was under cultivation for kitchen produce. The first Ordnance Survey edition of 1855-7 reveals an efficient arrangement of cross-axial paths (1855-7, OS 25'), while visitors in 1842 commend the excellent crops', such as strawberries, and an array of unusual herbs (Gardeners' Magazine 1842: 440). Surviving features of the productive garden include a good number of veteran apple trees, some in trained espalier form, and traces of the former paths, visible as slightly raised lines traversing the length and width of the walled enclosure. By the early 20th century, the south west corner was in use as a pheasantry, while private horticultural production in the rest of the garden continued until the late 1930s. It was let as a market garden until the 1950s, after which the garden was mostly grassed over. The southern half of the garden remains unmaintained. The northern part, however, now functions as a relatively simple garden space and outdoor eating area, with the adjoining former estate workers' cottages converted for use as a range of modern facilities. In addition to the apple trees, notable features within the enclosure include recently-restored herbaceous borders, and recent central pond with fountain.