The House - Page 1 | Page 2 | The Grounds | The Maze

Visitors are able to take a tour through rooms each of which adds an individual quality to the atmosphere of continuity throughout the centuries. Everywhere are portraits, old prints and maps which refer to the history of the house.

The entrance leads on to the main stone spiral staircase which goes up to the High Drawing Room, bedrooms, Library and Museum. The ground floor gives access to vaulted cellars and the Still Room which has a fine collection of blue and white china.

If you are staying for bed and breakfast, the Still Room is where breakfast is served.

The Museum
The Museum is a room on an upper floor which probably dates from the 14th century.

It has a fascinating collection of old letters, illuminated books, glass and objects used by the family over the years, and very rare wall paintings from circa 1530.

• Mary Queen of Scots' Rosary and Crucifix.
• An early wood and paper calculator: Napier's Bones.
• A letter signed by Mary Queen of Scots.
• Embroidery from the 1600s.
• Early printed book from 1493, Nuremburg Chronicle.
• Illuminated books.
• Jacobean Glass.

The High Drawing Room
When completed in the 16th century, the High Drawing Room cieling was decorated with painted beams and panels: typical of Scottish painted cielings at that time. The fragments which you can see today were discovered and restored in 1954.

In the middle of the 1700's the fifth Earl of Traquair who had visited Italy as a young man, covered the beams and panelled the walls in the classical style which remains today.

Above the doors he had cartouches painted which symbolise Drama, Music, Painting and Architecture (right).

There are full length portaits painted in Scotland in the 1630's, a portrait of John Dryden the poet, and the Drawing Room also contains a rare harpsichord (left), in full working order, made by Andreas Ruckers of Antwerp in 1651.

The House - Page 1 | Page 2 | The Grounds | The Maze