Monteviot House and Garden

The House: The Kerr family acquired the lands in the sixteenth century; the Kerrs themselves are an old Borders family, recorded in the Lowlands from the 12th century. Monteviot itself is an ancient site, and Dere Street, the Roman road from York to Newstead at Melrose (Trimontium), runs through the park. The present house of Monteviot began as an early-eighteenth century lodge built by the 1st Marquis of Lothian. In the nineteenth century Monteviot, was greatly admired and was developed into the principal seat of the Marquises of Lothian. Ambitious designs from Edward Blore were commissioned for a Jacobean-style mansion at Monteviot in 1832 but never completed, leaving the modest Georgian house and Blore’s elaborate Jacobean-inspired office wing side by side. In 1961 the interior was re-planned to the design of Schomberg Scott.

Gardens: The gardens were initially developed in Victorian period by the 9th Marquis, who, foreshadowing the 13th Marquis, had a political career. He served as Secretary of State for Scotland, 1887–92, but was also a keen orchid collector, indeed, the biggest private collector in Britain at the time.
The gardens today have been in regular development since the 1960’s, when the present Lord Lothian’s parents engaged Percy Cane, a renowned garden designer, to implement the River and Rose Gardens. The River Garden borders a high, U-shaped brick wall, which supports a viewing turret where the river Teviot panorama can be enjoyed. The development of the gardens seen today accelerated under the 13th Marquis who intended ‘to create a series of different magical gardens’ which he hoped would make ‘a captivating whole.’