2020 has been a difficult year for everyone, Head Gardener Tim summarises the challenges and triumphs for the Abbotsford gardens this year and outlines some exciting plans for 2021! After going ...
Read OnThe Perfect Scottish Staycation With many of us planning to holiday on our home turf this year, we share inspiration for your staycation in Scotland. Alongwith VisitScotland, we have handpicked some ...
Read OnWe’re coming towards the end of the season in the Abbotsford gardens and the garden team have been working hard to make sure we get the most out of everything in the garden. Head Gardener Tim talks ...
Read OnIt’s been amazing to have visitors enjoying our gardens again over the past couple of months. Head gardener Tim updates us on what the team has been up to as we near the end of the season. After ...
Read OnIt's a big job caring for the collections at Abbotsford! Our collections team recently sent a 1824 print of Lord Byron to the talented Helen Creasy at the Scottish Conservation Studio for conservation...
Read OnThe gardening team have been working their wellies off making sure everything is looking great for when we can open the garden gates again on Wednesday July 1st. Head Gardener Tim tells you what they...
Read OnWhile we're unable to celebrate Volunteers' Week with our volunteers this year, we're doing our best to celebrate them digitally. Today, volunteer Room Steward and Tour Guide Nancy writes about why ...
Read OnWhile Abbotsford is closed our gardening team are still busy at work looking after the Walled Regency Gardens, taking all necessary precautions for their health and wellbeing. Head Gardener Tim ...
Read OnLast week we participated in Museum Week, sharing something from Abbotsford on social media for each Museum Week theme over 7 days. If you missed it, here’s a round up of the week. Monday #HeroesMW...
Read OnWhen we asked 'what's your favourite thing about Abbotsford?' Bruce, volunteer Guide and Room Steward, pulled an interesting item out of the hat... When I was asked what my favourite thing was about ...
Read OnOn the anniversary of Shakespeare’s baptism, our Collections and Interpretation Manager Kirsty puts a tiny trinket centre stage to explore Sir Walter Scott's literary hero. It’s hardly ...
Read OnAlthough Abbotsford is closed to the public our gardening staff have been busy tending the Walled Regency Gardens, working alone in shifts and taking all necessary precautions. Head Gardener Tim ...
Read OnHappy Easter from Abbotsford! Although you can't enjoy a visit to Abbotsford this Easter weekend, we're bringing some of our collection's lesser known stories to you with an unusual spin on an Easter ...
Read OnAs we all get used to looking at the outside world through our windows, our Collections and Interpretation Manager, Kirsty Archer-Thompson considers whether Sir Walter Scott would have been self-...
Read OnSir Walter Scott was an early admirer of Lord Byron’s poetry, despite finding himself one of several contemporary poets under satirical attack in Byron’s English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809...
Read OnAn exquisite collection item, now on public display in our Visitor Centre, gave our curator Kirsty some sleepless nights before she discovered its story... I think it’s only healthy that every ...
Read OnHistoric houses give us an insight into the lives of those who built and lived in them over the centuries. We believe that the stories we tell should not only be informed by what we find inside these ...
Read OnOver the past couple of months, the Collections team at Abbotsford has been preparing to take part in Art UK’s Sculpture Project. This is a National project working to photograph and digitise ...
Read OnIn November 2018, we proudly awarded the John Muir Trust Discovery Awards to five young people from Gala Academy Secondary Support Centre! This inspiring group of teenagers with complex needs and ...
Read OnHere at Abbotsford, we like to continue Sir Walter Scott’s tradition of championing stories from Scotland’s rich and chequered past. In the last six months, two of Scotland’s most famous ...
Read OnAs a legacy of the Turner Bequest in 1856, the Tate became home to a vast collection of sketchbooks that belonged to the artist J. M. W. Turner. These private notebooks offer a unique insight into the...
Read OnHistoric houses give us an insight into the lives of those who built and lived in them over the centuries. We believe that the stories we tell should not only be informed by what we find inside these ...
Read OnLike many of us, Scott was not terribly enthusiastic about growing old. In his diary, he remarked disapprovingly that ‘the outside of my head is waxing grizzled but I cannot find that the snow has ...
Read OnHistoric houses give us an incredible insight into the lives of those who occupied them over the centuries. We believe that the stories we tell should not only be informed by what we find inside these...
Read OnTime flies when you’re working hard and the years have certainly flown by at Abbotsford. It has been 11 years since the founding of The Abbotsford Trust and this July, we celebrate 5 years since ...
Read OnExcitement is mounting as we look forward to welcoming Braw Lad Greg Kellie, Braw Lass Kimberley O’May and their Attendants Greg, Amy, Mark and Alex to Abbotsford as part of the Galashiels Braw Lads...
Read OnFor the 2018 Borders Book Festival, we asked our volunteers for their opinion: With an oeuvre spanning a variety of genres, topics and styles, it is difficult to pinpoint which are Scott's best works...
Read OnScott’s circle of friends encompassed lords and ladies of the very highest rank, just as much as it did business partners and the men and women working on his estate and in the household. ...
Read OnHistory isn’t simply about the four walls of that place you visit on your day out. It’s very much about the feeling you get standing in those four walls, and at Abbotsford, it’s that feeling of ...
Read OnAbbotsford is delighted to be featured in one of the latest chapters of 44 Scotland Street by Alexander McCall Smith. We are delighted to share the chapter ahead of the publication of the latest book ...
Read OnThe continuing challenge for Abbotsford is to safeguard the long term future of the iconic building that Scott created and that is the physical manifestation of the imagination of a man so important ...
Read OnWe've reached that time of the year when many take a few moments to reflect on their experiences. We take so many aspects of our time for granted, yet as we reach the final months, it all seems to...
Read OnScott loved autumn at Abbotsford, and taking a walk around the woodlands of the estate and along the banks of the Tweed, it’s easy to see why. Before the leaves slowly start falling one by one, the ...
Read OnOur collections tend to be fairly static because of their very nature; we are not a Walter Scott museum and don't buy filler material on a theme or on the man as a general rule. We exist to showcase ...
Read OnMy apologies for going completely dark; the closure season seemed to go past in the blink of an eye! We achieved a great deal over the winter, hand-cleaning all of Scott’s books, waxing all of the ...
Read OnAs we have a good old British grumble about the first chilly spell of the winter, I couldn't resist naming this post after the famous phrase from George R. R. Martin's epic fantasy series A Song of ...
Read On‘The ghost nowhere makes his appearance so well as with you.’ So declared the first Englishman to translate Leonore, Gottfried August Bürger’s blood-curdling tale of a bereaved fiancée ...
Read OnThis blog post supports the monument campaign of the Edinburgh Sir Walter Scott Club. "We laid her there, the Minstrel's darling child"... On the anniversary of Scott’s death, it feels like...
Read OnThere is always a buzz amongst staff and volunteers at Abbotsford on Scott's birthday. It's a particularly beautiful day today, and, having just hosted a wonderful outdoor theatre performance of ...
Read OnWell, the 25th national Festival of Archaeology is just getting underway, so it got me thinking about a side of Scott's antiquarian pursuits that perhaps doesn't get as much coverage as it should: his...
Read OnEarlier this week, our volunteers were treated to a trip up to the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh. As with all staff get-togethers, it was long overdue and offered a rare opportunity for ...
Read OnEvery now and then, it's rather fun to pick up Sir Walter Scott's Journal or peruse a collection of letters and find out what was happening on a particular date during his life. We haven't done this ...
Read On"My plantations are getting all into green leaf..." Sir Walter Scott's diary entry on 7/4/1826 The weather this week has warmed up, and is pretty typical of April rather than May, it seems: ...
Read On'Bones of horses , quantities of old hats, rags of clothes, scraps of leather and fragments of books and papers strewed the ground in great profusion...' This was the sight that greeted Sir Walter on...
Read OnOn the 23rd April many countries around the world will be celebrating World Book Day (something that the UK has done in recent years a month earlier). This date was originally chosen to coincide with ...
Read OnHello and a very warm welcome to our very first blog post on behalf of the Abbotsford Heritage and Engagement team! Here at Sir Walter Scott's 'Conundrum Castle', quite literally stuffed to the ...
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