'An American Aristocrat's Guide to Great Estates': Julie Montagu explores Scotland's largest inhabited castle
In the latest episode of 'An American Aristocrat's Guide to Great Estates', Julie Montagu, Viscountess Hinchingbrooke crosses the Scottish border to pay the 10th Duke of Roxburghe, Guy Innes-Ker, a visit at Floors Castle. The Duke gives her a tour of the largest inhabited castle in all of Scotland that sits on approximately 52,000 acres of the prime Scottish countryside. The castle's butler also gives Julie as a lesson in table-setting while she ventures on a fishing exhibition and also gets invited to the prestigious Floors Castle International Horse Trials.
The Earls and Dukes of Roxburghe, the Ker Family, have owned property in Roxburghshire since the 12th century. Despite being called a castle, Floors is actually a country-house rather than a fortress. The land on which the castle stands was originally a property of monks of Kelso Abbey before the reformation. It was then given to Robert Ker of Cessford who then became the first Earl of Roxburghe by King James VI.
The Floors Castle was built by Edinburgh architect William Adam in 1721 for the first Duke of Roxburghe on a site that previously housed a building called the House of Floris. It was originally a plain but symmetrical Georgian country house lying on the River Tweed and overlooking the Cheviot Hills. In the 19th century, Floors went through major changes, when the 6th Duke invited a leading architect William Playfair to remodel the castle. The renovations lasted between 1837 and 1847 and the castle was embellished with turrets and parapets. The project became Playfair's most important private commission and his revamping resulted in the building as seen today — a fairytale-esque, dramatic and romantic castle, the largest to be inhabited in Scotland to date.
While at present the Castle doesn't seem like a defensive citadel, it was built in a period when private fortresses weren't prominent in lowland Scotland. There was possibly also a tower on the site, which was common at the time to be on the Scottish Borders. The Anglo-Scottish border lines of 'Marches' were ungoverned areas where attacks were common like theft of cattle or murders and Reivers gang activity. Floors also stands opposite the Roxburgh Castle, a medieval fortress important to British history as King James II was killed there during a siege in 1460.
At the turn of the century in 1903, Henry John Innes-Ker, the eighth Duke of Roxburghe, married May Goelet, an American heiress. Originally from Long Island, she brought to Floors her impeccable collection of fine art, furniture and porcelain. They included Gobelins Manufactory Tapestries that were used in the ballrooms in the 1930s and were an addition to the already existing modernistic collections by Walter Sickert and Henri Matisse among others. Floors is an architectural masterpiece through and through, with gorgeous, picturesque gardens complete with fine herbaceous borders, fruit trees, and labyrinthine paths. The Millenium Garden also houses a little summer home, built in 1867 for Queen Victoria's visit.
The current Duke and Duchess are involved hands-on in the maintenance and protection of the Castle's treasures to ensure their safety and that they can be enjoyed by future generations. In 2010, Floors Castle was equipped with a biomass boiler to provide a new renewable source of energy for heating purposes and became a historical milestone. Floors Castle is now a category A listed building, and the grounds are listed in the Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes, the national listing of significant gardens in Scotland. Floors also featured in the 1984 film 'Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes'.
