5 Best Sights in Kelso, The Borders and the Southwest

The palatial Floors Castle, the largest inhabited castle in Scotland, is an architectural extravagance bristling with pepper-mill turrets. Not so much a castle as the ancestral seat of a wealthy and powerful landowning family, the Roxburghes, it stands on the "floors," or flat terrain, on the banks of the River Tweed. The enormous home was built in 1721 by William Adam (1689–1748) and modified by William Playfair (1789–1857), who added the turrets and towers in the 1840s. Rooms are crowded with valuable furniture, paintings, porcelain, and an eerie circular room full of stuffed birds; each room has a knowledgeable guide at the ready. The surrounding 56,000-acre estate is home to more than 40 farms. Although the castle itself is closed to visitors in winter, the grounds and café are open year-round.

Standing uncompromisingly on top of a barren, rocky ridge in the hills south of Mellerstain, this 16th-century peel tower, characteristic of the Borders, was built solely for defense, and its unadorned stones contrast with the luxury of Mellerstain House. If you let your imagination wander at this windy spot, you can almost see the rising dust of an advancing raiding party. Sir Walter Scott found this spot inspiring, and he visited the tower often during his childhood. Anne Carrick's tableaux in the tower illustrate some of Scott's Borders ballads, and the ticket includes an audio tour of the building.

The least intact ruin of the four great abbeys, Kelso Abbey is just a bleak fragment of what was once the largest of the group. It was here in 1460 that the nine-year-old James III was crowned king of Scotland. On a main invasion route, the abbey was burned three times in the 1540s alone, on the last occasion by the English Earl of Hertford's forces in 1545, when the 100 men and 12 monks of the garrison were butchered and the structure all but destroyed. The abbey itself is currently not considered structurally sound enough for visitors, but you can admire it from afar.

One fine example of the Borders area's ornate country homes is Mellerstain House, begun in the 1720s and finished in the 1770s by Robert Adam (1728–92); it is considered one of his finest creations. Sumptuous plasterwork covers almost all interior surfaces, and there are outstanding examples of 18th-century furnishings, porcelain and china, paintings, and embroidery. The beautiful terraced gardens (open an hour before the house itself) are as renowned as the house.

In Kelso´s main square, you'll find this small museum that is both a history of salmon fishing in the area and of the River Tweed itself, exploring the significance of fishing on the local economy and its decline. Historic maps and collections of fishing gear show the evolution of life (and fishing) on the river. There are even replicas of the biggest fish reportedly ever caught and the disputes each one provoked.