General view.

Description General view.

Date 6/1957

Collection Records of the Scottish National Buildings Record, Edinburgh, Scotland

Catalogue Number PB 1110

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 760035

Scope and Content Heather hut, Traquair House, Scottish Borders This shows the 'heather hut' in the garden to the south-east of the house. The date '1834' is marked out in hazel twigs below a crown on the herringbone-patterned interior walls. The conical roof is thatched in reeds, and the walls with heather, all supported by a wooden framework. The doorway forms a Gothic arch. This heather hut is a rare survival of one of the 'roofed seats, boat houses, moss houses, flint houses and bark huts' described in gardening books such as J C Loudon's 'Encyclopaedia of Gardening' of 1822. These picturesque little buildings formed 'resting-places, containing seats and other furniture, or conveniences in or near them'. Traquair is the oldest continually inhabited house in Scotland, with its origins in the 10th century. It was the site of a royal hunting lodge in the 1200s, but the house as seen today is based around a c.1512 tower-house with many later additions. The flanking service wings were built in 1695 to designs by architect James Smith (c.1645-1731), who also designed the wrought-iron screens round the courtyard in 1698. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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