Carved sandstone fireplace at Abbotsford by the Smith Brothers of Darnick, ca. 1822

Carved sandstone fireplace at Abbotsford by the Smith Brothers of Darnick, ca. 1822

Buildings

This carved pink sandstone fireplace was made by the Smiths of Darnick, a local building firm that was responsible for much of the work at Abbotsford, the house of Sir Walter Scott in Selkirkshire in the Scottish Borders. It is in a medieval ‘Gothic’ style, decorated with a variety of motifs including angels and thistles and the stone is from a nearby quarry. The inset tiles are seventeenth-century Dutch and the fire grate, acquired by Scott in ca.1823, is also thought to date from the seventeenth century. The fireplace is one of the first features that visitors to Abbotsford see as they come through the front door into the oak-panelled entrance hall, with its stained glass windows, ceiling painted with heraldic devices and displays of arms, armour and antiquities. The design for the fireplace is based on the so-called ‘Abbot’s Seat’ at nearby Melrose Abbey, which also features in an early Walter Scott poem, The Lay of the Last Minstrel. The sculptor was John Smith of the Darnick family, who also executed other decorative stone work at Abbotsford and carved a portrait statue of Scott’s favourite deerhound, Maida. His most famous work is the red sandstone statue of William Wallace at Dryburgh Abbey, undertaken for the Earl of Buchan. In addition to the Abbotsford building, the Smiths of Darnick were famous bridge designers and builders mostly on the River Tweed and its tributaries. They also constructed large numbers of country houses, parish churches and manses in the Scottish Borders, being active as a father and sons business for over fifty years from 1808 to 1861.

Sir Walter Scott, Edinburgh-raised but who knew the Borders well from childhood, built his Selkirkshire house around an existing farmhouse, spending about £25,000 on the project (the equivalent of two million today) over about ten years from 1813. The house was a tourist attraction during his life time and he died there in 1832. It was a celebration of all things local from the materials used in the construction, to the use of local craftsmen for the stone and wood work and the design references to buildings and places in the Borders of Scotland. The name ‘Abbotsford’ was an invention, which evokes the idea of the nearby Melrose Abbey and also makes reference to the river Tweed, on whose banks the house is sited. Abbotsford, in the building itself, the architecture and design features and its historic collections, was a pivotal contribution to Scottish antiquarian material culture. It incorporated many pieces of antique stone and woodwork from Scotland’s iconic ancient ruins, including Melrose Abbey.

The Abbey at Melrose was built as an outpost for the Cistercian-founded Rievaulx Abbey in North Yorkshire and is one of a series of great abbeys across southern Scotland in an area of rich farmland and sheep grazing either side of the Tweed. It was on the route of a pilgrim’s way, ending at Lindisfarne, falling into ruin after the reformation, though parts of the building were still used as the parish church in Walter Scott’s day. There are Roman settlement in the area, with artefacts from these sites also gathered by Scott for his museum at Abbotsford. To the east of Melrose, on the road to Dryburgh Abbey, where Scott is buried, is the promontory known as ‘Scott’s View’ from which a great panorama of the Borders landscape can be seen. Abbotsford and the Borders were important tourist destinations from the time of Walter Scott, with the nineteenth-century development of Melrose largely based on its summer visitors. Numerous craft producers evolved to supply the tourist demand for souvenirs, including the makers of wooden trinkets and small boxes, called ‘treen’, in relic wood, cut from trees that were grown on the Abbotsford estate and thus connected with the great man and the place. Similar wooded objects were made in Ayrshire from locally grown trees to commemorate connections with Robert Burns.

Abbotsford Trust

Abbotsford