The Grown Up Gapper: SCOTLAND - A Day in the Borders

In the period after the Beeching rail closures, the Scottish Borders region became the largest area of Mainland Britain without a rail service. All that changed in September 2015 when the Borders Railway was reopened to Tweedbank and the Scottish Borders once again had access to a train.

Class 170's on the Borders Railway

The journey to Tweedbank is about an hour from Edinburgh through rolling countryside and because its all effectively brand new and "planned" when you arrive at the end of the line a series of well signposted foot and cycle paths fan out in all directions. One such path makes easy walking of the mile to Abbotsford - home of writer and poet Sir Walter Scott.

Now if you have visited the cluster of timber framed buildings around Stratford-upon-Avon related to Shakespeare or Jane Austen's very modest house in Chawton, Hampshire, you are in for a bit of a shock with Abbotsford, Sir Walter Scott was a man who became very rich during his lifetime.

What did make today an absolute joy was being able to wander around a house and garden that was pretty much devoid of tourists. That is definitely one of the great advantages of a pandemic!

The brass cover hides a form of underfloor heating

Scott's Study

The Library

Sir Walter Scott

From Abbotsford its a couple of miles walk along a country lane to the market town of Melrose from where a riverside path joins up with a cycle path to make another nice and easy walk back to the station at Tweedbank.

Melrose is home to one of the ruined Borders abbeys. Dating from the 12th century Melrose Abbey is the last resting place of Robert the Bruce's heart (his body is in Dunfermline Abbey). A stone marks the spot where a casket containing a human heart was uncovered but no one is 100% sure if it is that of Robert the Bruce.