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Bowhill, in the Scottish Borders, started life as a modest Georgian villa, but grew into a huge mansion. The art collection was consolidated when Henry, the enlightened 3rd Duke of Buccleuch, and his wife, Elizabeth Montagu, united the three families of Montagu, Douglas and Scott c.1800. The austere greywacke exterior belies rich interiors filled with treasures – the 4th Duke’s Library, with its views of the Ettrick Valley so dear to Sir Walter Scott, the Drawing Room’s masterpieces by Claude and Ruysdael, the Boudoir and its Chinese wallpaper, the Dining Room with its Canaletto of the Thames at Whitehall, the Mortlake tapestries of Mantegna’s Triumphs of Caeasar, and the Buccleuch collection of miniatures.

From the preface: With its simple form and dark greywacke stone, its great mass spread along a plain grassy platform above the Ettrick Valley, Bowhill might be thought to verge on the austere. For the approaching visitor there is no hint of a family whose ties thread for centuries back through the histories of Scotland and England, little to encourage hope that rich and varied art collections might lie within, or even that these solid stones might have resonated with festivities and celebrations, the setting for warm sentiments and deeper emotions. Bowhill is a most deceptive house.

This book falls into two parts, a history of the family, the Scotts of Buccleuch, and the building of Bowhill, and tour of its spectacular rooms.

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