If Objects Could Speak...

The dining room was the scene of many family occasions and parties of great joviality during Scott’s lifetime. This was the social and convivial epicentre of Abbotsford, and hosted many an evening of conversation, laughter and song. Walter Scott was enormously well read, as his extensive library attests, and there were few topics on which he could not converse with authority. His collection, which includes items from just about every continent on earth, is an example of a truly enquiring mind, with a broad range of interests, literary, historical, martial, folkloric, geographical and political. Naturally hospitable and famous around the world, Scott rarely wanted for company. Many of his visitors would stay for days at a time, joining the family for every meal.

Of all the thousands of objects in the collection that one could sit down and have a conversation with, it is perhaps Scott’s relatively mundane dinner table that may have the best stories to tell. The current table was commissioned from George Bullock and made using oak from the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry’s estate at Drumlanrig. It is a fine example of its type, constructed of materials of high pedigree, but it is the activities surrounding it that I would ask it about, if it could speak.

I would ask about family life, as Abbotsford was first and foremost a beloved home for Scott and his family. The motto that adorns the spines of the books in Scott’s library, Clausus Tutus Ero, or Enclosed, I will be Safe, speaks to the sense of security his Conundrum Castle provided him. 

The table would have borne witness to the homely domesticity and day-to-day conversations between the family that would be such a fascinating window on the private life of a man who, in his day, was stratospherically famous, and perhaps wore the mask of celebrity that hid a very different character beneath. Also worthy of conversation would be the table’s views on the list of intriguing personalities who visited Abbotsford to partake in the bounty of Scott’s hospitality, the joy of his company and the contents of his cellar!

A regular visitor was poet and novelist James Hogg, the Etterick Shepherd, who often found himself being the guardian of the punch. In 1817, Scott was visited by American writer Washington Irving, the author of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip van Winkle, the latter inspired by Scott’s retelling of the legend of Thomas the Rhymer. Recording the memories of his visit some years later, Irving wrote,

‘Several days were passed by me, in the way I have attempted to describe, in almost constant, familiar, and joyous conversation with Scott… Every night I retired with my mind filled with delightful recollections of the day, and every morning I rose with the certainty of new enjoyment.’

Lady Byron also visited in 1817, following the separation from her husband and his self-imposed exile in Europe. It is certain she would have had some tales to tell about her erstwhile husband. Amongst the other luminaries of the day to take a seat at Scott’s table were poet William Wordsworth, philosopher and historian Adam Ferguson, scientist and inventor Sir Humphrey Davey and painters J.M.W Turner and David Wilkie, as well as a host of the local gentry, with the Dukes of Roxburghe and Buccleuch also dining at Abbotsford. Royalty was represented by Gustav, Prince of Vasa, the son of the King of Sweden, and Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, the future King of the Belgians.

One can picture Scott, entertaining such folk with his customary alacrity, holding court on subjects close to his heart and debating the issues of the day, exchanging stories and songs with his guests. His style was informal, declining the customary seat at the head of the table and taking a position wherever there was a spare place. What can be said with certainty is that an evening in Abbotsford’s dining room, in the company of the Wizard of the North, had few rivals. If the table could speak, what tales it could tell.

- Dr Matt Thompson