Introduction by the Duke of Roxburghe

Welcome to Floors Castle! I derive a great deal of pleasure from sharing the beauty of Floors with all those who visit the Castle, which was first opened to the public in 1977, and I greatly hope that you will enjoy the time you spend here. Although each generation of my family has, of course, contributed to the collection of treasures in the house, many were collected by my American grandmother, May, particularly the tapestries and the French furniture and porcelain. She had several of the rooms altered to display the tapestries brought over by her when she married my grandfather in 1903.

The house was built between 1718 and 1740 by the architect and master builder, William Adam. My predecessor John Ker, 5th Earl of Roxburghe, who had been Secretary of State for Scotland and whose influence had greatly assisted the passage through the Scottish parliament of the Act of Union in 1707 which united the parliaments of Scotland and England (a constitutional change which then aroused and to the day continues to arouse some debate), was rewarded for his efforts by Queen Anne who granted him a dukedom. To accord with his elevated status as 1st Duke of Roxburghe his thought was to build a grand house on this fine site with views of the River Tweed and, in the background, the Cheviot Hills where much of the Roxburghe lands are located. I am bound to say that from an inspection of the Wilson painting which hangs in the sitting room Adam's house would, indeed, have complied with his wishes. However, about a hundred years later, James Innes Ker, the 6th Duke, decided in 1840 to bring the architectural talents of William Playfair, then engaged in designing many fine buildings in the new town of Edinburgh, to embellish the plain Adam features with lead cupolas and carved stonework which changed the house dramatically to its present appearance.

All the rooms which are open to the public are still used by me and my family, both during the season when the house is closed and, of course, during the rest of the year. While this may make my life a little complicated it has always been my wish that the public should see the house as it is - very much a family home. Although it is possible to share the public rooms with visitors it is not really possible to include the bedrooms (it would be difficult for them to fulfil both functions!).

The maintenance of Floors, its contents and the surrounding grounds is a continuing and costly process. By your presence you are assisting in that task and helping to preserve a part of Scotland's heritage for future generations to enjoy.

The Building of Floors Castle

For many years it was thought that Sir John Vanbrugh had been the architect of Floors. However we now know that William Adam was both architect and builder of the Georgian house depicted in the painting by William Wilson (see page 5).

The 6th Duke was only 21 and just married when he called in W. H. Playfair (1790-1857), the architect of many well-known and handsome buildings in Edinburgh including the classical National Gallery. When working in the Scots baronial vernacular he developed a style peculiarly his own. Anyone familiar with Donaldson's Hospital in Edinburgh will immediately detect the hand of the same architect at Floors, where Playfair let his imagination and his talent run riot. The result is as dramatic as anything Vanbrugh could have conceived with a roofscape as exotic as Chambord or Longleat.

There have been no external alterations since the 6th Duke's time of any note. Internally it is a different story as many of the rooms were completely re-modelled by the 8th Duchess in the first quarter of the present century. The lodges and main gates were built in 1929 to the designs of the late Reginald Fairlie (1883-1952).