Description:

Traquair House, Scotland’s oldest inhabited home, is a must-see with fascinating links to the Wars of Independence, Bonnie Prince Charlie, and the Jacobite cause. While it’s unclear when its foundations were laid, a substantial building was already standing by 1107, when Alexander I of Scotland signed a royal charter there. Originally a royal hunting lodge, it also served as a place for dispensing justice, issuing laws, and holding courts. After Alexander III’s death in 1286, Traquair became one of many fortified towers along the River Tweed, signaling neighbors of English invasions with beacon fires. Briefly occupied by English troops, it returned to the Crown with Robert the Bruce’s accession in 1306. In 1738, the fifth Earl of Traquair, a staunch Jacobite, added the Bear Gates at the avenue’s end. According to legend, they were closed after a visit from Bonnie Prince Charlie and would remain shut until a Stuart king is crowned in London.