Creating a Spotlight Display

House and Collections Officer Claudia explains how our latest library spotlight display came into being.

A couple of years ago, a generous donor enabled us to acquire a small but state of the art exhibition case; an acquisition which, in turn, enabled us to revive an old Abbotsford tradition. This tradition, started in 1934 by the Major General Sir Walter Maxwell-Scott (Scott’s great-great grandson), involves displaying treasures from the Abbotsford collection on the Shillinglaw map table in the Abbotsford Library.

With so much to see within the rooms at Abbotsford, you may wonder why more exhibition space is required! The answer can be found in the fact that the historic rooms at Abbotsford are very much as they were when Sir Walter Scott died; the artefacts, furniture and paintings that you see were here in his day, and we don’t add or take anything away.

This is, of course, incredibly special.  However, we also hold a large collection of items related to Scott himself; to his family and descendants. The Major General was possibly sought to find a way to share more of the amazing collection not on permanent display and share this with the public. That is why we enjoy creating the spotlight displays in the Library- we can share things normally kept in our collection stores.

Our latest display is on the theme of the Abbotsford Bicentenary. In 2024, Scott’s ‘Conundrum Castle’ turned 200, and it is fitting to start the new season featuring objects connected with the building process. Scott was a very hands-on client during the building of Abbotsford, always looking over the shoulder of his masons and joiners, making constant changes. But Scott being Scott, he was also a great friend to many of those involved in the building process.

A significant part of our display focuses on William Paterson, builder from Galashiels (1775-1829). He was responsible for the first phase of building work at Abbotsford from 1816-18. Some of the objects in our display case are exhibited here for the very first time, they are on loan to Abbotsford from Paterson’s descendants. One such item is copy of Paterson’s portrait by Robert Scott Lauder R.S.A. The original portrait currently hangs in our meeting room upstairs, but it was too big to fit in the case!

Then we have a beautiful agate seal, with the most intriguing little label. It reads ‘Paterson Crest - stone found when digging the foundations for Abbotsford’ . The label itself dates from the early twentieth century, but it is not inconceivable that Scott, who was obsessed with heraldry, had the seal made for Paterson.

The round wooden box contains a wax imprint of the seal. One of the other objects we have on loan from this collection is an invitation to Scott’s funeral, addressed to Paterson; this item is currently on display in our visitor centre exhibition.

Before we choose objects for our display, we need to make sure they are robust enough to be displayed. We don’t want to damage anything we have been entrusted with. We carefully condition assess the objects first and record our findings. Some kind of materials, like a manuscript letter for example, are very sensitive to light, so we need to limit exposure. Luckily, our display case has a dimmable light fitting and we use a portable light meter to set the light to appropriate levels. We can also limit the time that a more vulnerable object is on display. 

The letter on display is from Scott to his plumber, Archibald Scott from Kelso.  Before we could put it on display, we had to decipher it as, for a prolific writer, Scott’s handwriting is actually not the easiest to read.

We gave it our best attempt, but were still missing some crucial words, and so we called in a favour from Scott scholars Ainsley Macintosh and Hilary Clydesdale. They spent a good part of last summer transcribing Scott’s diaries of his 1814 journey around the coast of Scotland and Ireland with the commissioners of the Northern Lighthouses (you may remember their blog from last August), and so when it comes to reading Scott’s handwriting, they are THE experts!

When we could finally read the full letter, it sounded terribly familiar to anyone who has ever undertaken any building work.  Scott wanted a quote for some plumbing work for his kitchen and laundry as well as two water closets and pewter basins upstairs- a very modern request. In his letter, Scott considers the need for pumps for the water, as the pressure is poor, and he refers to a well, which is still extant today and worries about possible frost damaging to the pipes. Despite the gap of 200 years, some building concerns do not change with time!

Once all the objects are chosen, we need to turn to interpretation- writing our labels. This is one of the best parts of the job- and once we get started, it is sometimes difficult to stop as there is so much to talk about! After going off on a lot of tangents (we know all about nineteenth century hand pumps now), we need to make the text digestible and interesting, along with choosing relevant images to sit alongside this. Many weeks later, the text is finally ready to be sent away to the designer and printer.

The last task is putting everything together- and hoping that our visitors find our new display as fascinating as we do!