A beautiful home on the outskirts of one of Scotland's prettiest market towns, and an easy commute to Edinburgh
Arabella Youens looks at Kirklands House, a wonderful old home set in five acres of charming gardens near Melrose.
Just last week we looked at the extraordinary value available in the Scottish Borders, where £1 million can still buy a grand house with land. A perfect example to demonstrate the point on the market right now: Kirklands House, for sale at offers over £1.1m jointly with GSC Grays and Savills.
The house is close to Melrose, a market town widely viewed as one of the most sought-after places to live in the Scottish Borders. Set beneath the Eildon Hills, it has an attractive town centre with independent shops, cafés, boutique hotels and amenities and it hosts cultural events, too, such as the popular Borders Book Festival, while the world's first Rugby Sevens tournament took place here in 1883, and is still held annually in the town today.
Young professionals wanting to move out to the countryside or those with roots in the Borders coming home from a stint living down south might be the ideal candidates for the new owners of Kirklands, which is an elegant Category B-listed country house with six bedrooms and set in 5½ acres. Built in the 1730s, with Victorian additions, the house is arranged over three floors; it has been a much-loved family home for the past 20 years.
‘Kirklands is a fantastic house with a south-facing position high above the River Tweed [and it] has been carefully looked after by the current owners,’ says Mr Denne, adding that they have run a successful B&B business from the house.
‘It doesn’t need what I call a “generational overhaul”, but the new custodians will probably want to stamp their own decorative mark on the place.’
For those looking for a bit more besides, there is a further two-bedroom cottage with loose boxes, garaging and a workshop available via a separate lot and it could, subject to the usual consents, be turned into a holiday property.
The B&B is arranged around the old stables courtyard.
For all that, this is not a property that needs to be acquired with a lifestyle business in mind, since Kirklands is a sound spot for commuters to Edinburgh: the rail link at nearby Tweedbank station has services to Edinburgh Waverley that take an hour.
Kirklands is on the market for offers over £1.1m via GSC Grays and Savills.
