Kelso – A Castle's Walled Garden and a Country House Lunch
A day.
The route
Floors Castle, the Dukes of Roxburghe's home on the edge of Kelso, has a walled garden that grows fruit, vegetables and flowers, as it has since it moved here in 1857.
Lunch is across the Tweed at SCHLOSS Roxburghe, the old manor of Sunlaws, where the story goes that Bonnie Prince Charlie once spent a night.
Before you go
Book accommodation nearby
If you are staying over: here are ours nearest where the day starts and ends.
The nearest of ours is The House in the Hill, 7 miles away. Sleeps 4; next free Thu 29 Oct to Sat 31 Oct.
The day
Kelso
A wander through the walled garden, with its 1850s glasshouses, then lunch looking out over the grounds of an old Borders manor.
Floors Castle Walled Garden
From October to Easter, while the castle and its wider grounds are shut, the way in is the Terrace Café and gardens entrance on the B6397, with parking by the walled garden. A ticket is £3 a person, sold on Floors Castle's website, and children under 16 go free. Inside the old brick walls, four acres hold the Victorian kitchen garden, herbaceous borders counted among the finest in the UK, and a shady fern garden by a fountain. In the glasshouses of the 1850s, grapes, figs and peaches are grown the traditional way. The Millennium Garden's French-style parterre features the intertwined initials of the 10th Duke and Duchess, and at the end of its border stands the Queen's House, built for Queen Victoria to take afternoon tea in when she came in 1867. The paths are flat and gravelled, and dogs on leads are welcome.
About 5 min by car
SCHLOSS Roxburghe
Lunch
SCHLOSS Roxburghe stands in its own grounds across the Tweed at Heiton, on the Jedburgh road. The manor was burned and rebuilt more than once, and the Duke of Roxburghe bought it in 1969 and later made it a country house hotel. Lunch is at Charlie's, its restaurant, where floor-to-ceiling windows look out over the gardens and the menu leans on produce from the estate and the Borders. Tables are booked through Charlie's page on the hotel's website. Children are welcome, and dogs have a menu of their own.
If it rains
The walled garden is outdoors; on a wet morning the Terrace Café at its entrance serves hot drinks and hot meals, and lunch at Charlie's is indoors.
Where to stay
Photograph by Steve Hurst via Google