Nisbet House
| Nisbet House | |
| Berwickshire | |
|---|---|
 Nisbet House and its restored tower | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | NT795512 |
| Location: | 55°45’14"N, 2°19’41"W |
| History | |
| Country house | |
| Information | |
| Owned by: | Private |
Nisbet House is a 17th-century mansion in Berwickshire. It stands located on the north side of the Blackadder Water, a mile and half south of Duns, in the Merse, a low-lying part of the county.
The house was built in about 1630 by Sir Alexander Nisbet, ancestor of the heraldic authority Alexander Nisbet (1657–1725). Architectural evidence suggests that the building incorporates, at its eastern end, a square pele tower that was the former house. The house is protected as a category A listed building.[1]
History
The Nisbet family built two fortified houses or pele towers in the 12th century, East Nisbet and West Nisbet. East Nisbet, now known as Allanbank, was located on the Blackadder Water near Allanton, although the original tower no longer exists. Wester Nisbet remains, and was extended in the 1630s to form the bulk of the present house. The laird at the time was Sir Alexander Nisbet of that Ilk (c. 1580–1660).
Sir Alexander Nisbet overextended his finances in supporting King Charles I in the Civil War, and was forced to sell the property to John Ker in 1652. A square tower, with fine interior plasterwork, in the classical style of William Adam was added to the west end in 1774. The house remained with Ker descendants (latterly in the person of Lord Sinclair) until the 1950s, when the estate was sold to Lord Brocket. After partial modernisation, the house was sold again in the mid-1960s to a local farmer, and remained unoccupied until its recent and comprehensive restoration as a private residence.
Nisbet estate
The former estate contains a very small mill, an 18th-century U-plan stable range (now converted into homes), and a scattering of cottages and farmhouses. Dunse Spa, a source of mineral water in the 18th century, is just to the north of the Nisbet estate and the spa house still stands.
Pictures
Photographs of Nisbet House taken by Robert Chancellor Nesbit in the 1930s.
East end of Nisbet House
Gardens at Nisbet House
Ploughing estate fields at Nisbet House
Burial vault of Nisbet and Carre families
Outside links
References
- ↑ "Nisbet House: Listed Building Report". Historic Scotland. http://hsewsf.sedsh.gov.uk/hslive/hsstart?P_HBNUM=2131. Retrieved 2011-04-18.
- Nikolaus Pevsner: The Buildings of Scotland: , 2006 Penguin Books ISBN 978-0-300-10702-9
- MacGibbon & Ross (1887). The Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland. http://www.nesbittnisbet.org.uk/macgibbonross1887.pdf.
- Nesbitt, Robert Chancellor (1994). Nisbet of that Ilk. Phillimore. ISBN 0-85033-929-4.
- Strang, Charles A (1994). Borders and Berwick. Rutland Press. p. 43. ISBN 1-873190-10-7.
