Traquair House

Traquair House stands seven kilometres south-east of Peebles in the Scottish Borders. Built in the style of a fortified mansion, it is claimed as the oldest continually inhabited house in Scotland. The estate includes the Traquair Brewery and a maze planted with beech trees. The house occupies the site of a twelfth-century hunting seat used by Scottish kings. In the thirteenth century it became a key link in the chain of defence guarding the Tweed Valley against English invasion. Traquair has been the family seat of the Earls of Traquair for four centuries. Mary, Queen of Scots stayed in the King’s Room in August 1566, and James VI visited on 9 March 1602. The house contains ancestral portraits, a 1530 mural, royal charters and relics belonging to Mary and the Jacobites. The Bear Gates at the main entrance were sealed in 1796 by the seventh Earl, who vowed they would never be opened again. Visitors find fifty rooms including the Drawing Room, Dressing Room, Museum Room and Dining Room. The Still Room serves breakfast among eighteenth-century porcelain, and the library holds more than three thousand volumes. The brewery uses original oak tuns over two centuries old to ferment Jacobite Ale and House Ale. The maze, replanted after the winter of 1983, offers a winding path through beech trees.