Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 18 on 8/1/2005.

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Queensbury's jewels

Charles Douglas visits Drumlanrig, in Dumfriesshire

The view from the hill is of rolling Dumfriesshire hills surrounding a plateau upon which sits a magnificent, quadrangular castle built of pink sandstone. Steeped in romance, this is Drumlanrig, home of the ninth Duke of Buccleuch and 11th Duke of Queensberry.

Surrounded by the 120,000 acre Buccleuch Estate, and grand Victorian gardens, the building, which has been described as “the most glorious residence in the British Isles,” was completed in 1691 by William Douglas, first Duke of Queensberry, who is said to have so appalled at the tremendous costs he incurred that he could not bring himself to move in.

His son, the second Duke, had no such inhibitions, but was rather more preoccupied with drawing up the Act of Union between Scotland and England, thus creating one single parliament for the two nations. There are those who think it ironic, therefore, that Queensberry House, the second Duke’s town house in Edinburgh, has been incorporated into the revived Scottish parliament building which opened two months ago.

Throughout the centuries, many of the old families of Scotland have either lost their lands or have disappeared altogether. Not so the Scotts of Buccleuch (Newark Castle, Bowhill, Dalkeith Palace ) who married into the fortunes and estates of both the English Montagu family (Boughton, Northamptonshire) and Scottish Douglas family (Drumlanrig), and who have consistently cultivated and administered their properties with integrity and skill, pioneering new trends in .....

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By Charles Douglas

Section : Historic Houses

Page number : 14