Ayton
Encyclopedia
Berwickshire
Berwickshire or the County of Berwick is a registration county, a committee area of the Scottish Borders Council, and a lieutenancy area of Scotland, on the border with England. The town after which it is named—Berwick-upon-Tweed—was lost by Scotland to England in 1482...
, in the southeast of Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
today part of the Scottish Borders
Scottish Borders
The Scottish Borders is one of 32 local government council areas of Scotland. It is bordered by Dumfries and Galloway in the west, South Lanarkshire and West Lothian in the north west, City of Edinburgh, East Lothian, Midlothian to the north; and the non-metropolitan counties of Northumberland...
region. It is on the Eye Water, from which it is said to take its name: Ayton means 'Eye-town'. It contains the former ancient tollbooth or town hall with a clock tower, a large branch of the Royal Bank of Scotland, a Post Office, one pub and a shop.
It is located near the East Coast Main Line
East Coast Main Line
The East Coast Main Line is a long electrified high-speed railway link between London, Peterborough, Doncaster, Wakefield, Leeds, York, Darlington, Newcastle and Edinburgh...
railway line, which runs between London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, King's Cross and Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
, Waverley station
Edinburgh Waverley railway station
Edinburgh Waverley railway station is the main railway station in the Scottish capital Edinburgh. Covering an area of over 25 acres in the centre of the city, it is the second-largest main line railway station in the United Kingdom in terms of area, the largest being...
, the closest station being Berwick-upon-Tweed
Berwick-upon-Tweed
Berwick-upon-Tweed or simply Berwick is a town in the county of Northumberland and is the northernmost town in England, on the east coast at the mouth of the River Tweed. It is situated 2.5 miles south of the Scottish border....
.
The A1 (Great North Road) originally ran through the heart of the village, but during the 1980s a bypass was built to the East of the village. Ayton was the location of a coaching inn
Coaching inn
In Europe, from approximately the mid-17th century for a period of about 200 years, the coaching inn, sometimes called a coaching house or staging inn, was a vital part of the inland transport infrastructure, as an inn serving coach travelers...
on the road between London and Edinburgh.
Ayton is the last major work of James Gillespie Graham, Scotland’s
leading Gothic revival architect and was designed by him in 1845.
The castle has survived in family ownership as the centre of a
substantial Borders estate since then.
Norman settlers are the first recorded owners of Ayton when the De
Vesci family are understood to have built a small castle. Its
medieval history is limited apart from a siege by English royal
forces in 1497. By this time it was owned by the Homes, already one
of the great families of Berwickshire. James Home’s support for the
Stuarts in 1715 led to the sequestration of the estate which
remained vested in the crown until 1765, when it was acquired by
James Fordyce, Commissioner for Lands and Forests of Scotland.
James Fordyce planted a number of woodlands and moved Ayton
village further from the castle.
Thereafter little is known until the 18th century, although one clue
exists; namely three drawings by Robert Adam now in the Soane
Museum. Dated 23 March 1791 they show proposals for the lodge
and gate in the form of a simple rustic building with an elegant
bowed porch ‘at the entrance to Ayton House’.
James Fordyce died in 1809 bequeathing the estate to a grandson,
John Fordyce, who was to have a military career. In 1834 disaster
struck Ayton, as related by the Reverend George Tough, in the New
Statistical Account of Scotland (1845): ‘A devouring conflagration has
within these few weeks, and in the short period of as many hours,
reduced that delightful mansion to a heap of ruins. Providentially, the
whole family.... although scarcely in time warned of their danger, and
some of them in the greatest jeopardy escaped unhurt. They must
remove for a season. May they soon return to retrieve the damage, and
to enliven the scene, which is desolate in the extreme’.
The Fordyce family did not however return and in 1838 the estate
was sold to William Mitchell. Born in 1778, the youngest son of an
Aberdeenshire family, he had been the protégé of his cousin Gilbert
Innes of Stow, near Lauder, who for more than 40 years was Deputy
Governor of the Royal Bank of Scotland. Mitchell became First
Cashier of the bank in 1816 and a director in 1841. Innes dies in
1832, to be followed by his only surviving sister in 1839, whereupon
Mitchell inherited their estates, a magnificent increase in his fortune
which he marked in 1840 by adopting the name Mitchell-Innes.
The only cloud was the scandal that ensued when it was discovered
that Gilbert Innes had died bankrupt. It is possible that as a result
of the Mitchell-Innes were never quite as rich as they felt they
ought to be, but William Mitchell-Innes seemed unconcerned; ‘His
means were ample’ wrote his obituarist in the Berwickshire Journal,
‘And his liberality in distributing them commensurate therewith; he
maintained a princely establishment, and his generous hospitality was
his most striking characteristic’.
Whilst now in his 60s Mitchell-Innes was determined to build a
house worthy of his new landed status and approached James
Gillespie Graham who was his near contemporary. The contract
drawings still preserved at Ayton are dated 1845. Graham was then
busy extending Brodick Castle in Arran for the eldest son of the
10th Duke of Hamilton.
There are similarities between Ayton and Graham’s work at
Brodick, but at Ayton he had the advantage of an empty site and a
more enthusiastic patron. The result is a masterly composition,
built of local red sandstone by Alexander Rowe of Edinburgh that
brings great drama to what was originally quite a small building:
Mitchell-Innes’s demands for space were relatively modest, as his
family had all left home.
Note: extracted from an article upon Ayton Castle by Michael
Hall in Country Life Magazine dated 12 August 1993 and with the
kind permission of Country Life.
James Boswell
The Scottish diarist and authorAuthor
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
James Boswell
James Boswell
James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck was a lawyer, diarist, and author born in Edinburgh, Scotland; he is best known for the biography he wrote of one of his contemporaries, the English literary figure Samuel Johnson....
, biographer of Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
passed through Ayton on his journey to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
on 15 November 1762. In his London Journal
London Journal
James Boswell's London Journal is a published version of the daily journal he kept between the years 1762 and 1763 while in London. Along with many more of his private papers, it was found in the 1920s at Malahide Castle in Ireland, and first published in 1950. In it, Boswell, then a young Scotsman...
he recounts "...We did very well till we passed Old Camus, when one of the wheels of our chaise
Chaise
A chaise, sometimes called chay or shay, is a light two - or four-wheeled traveling or pleasure carriage, with a folding hood or calash top for one or two people....
was so much broke that it was of no use. The driver proposed that we should mount the horses and ride to Berwick
Berwick
Berwick-upon-Tweed is a border town in the north of England.Berwick may also refer to:- England :*Berwick Street Market, London*Berwick, Sussex**Berwick railway station*Berwick St John, Wiltshire...
. But this I would by no means agree to; and as my partner let me be the principal man and take the direction of our journey, I made the chaise be dragged on to Ayton, where we waited till the driver rode to Berwick and brought us a chaise. Never did I pass three hours more unhappily. We were set down in a cold ale-house in a dirty little village. We had a beefsteak ill-dressed and had nothing to drink but thick muddy beer. We were both out of humour so that we could not speak. We tried to sleep but in vain. We only got a drowsy headache. We were scorched by the fire on the one hand and shivering with the frost on the other. at last our chaise came, and we got to Berwick about twelve at night. We had a slice of hard dry toast, a bowl of warm negus (drink)
Negus (drink)
Negus is the name of a drink made of wine, most commonly port, mixed with hot water, spiced and sugared.-History:According to Malone this drink was invented by Col...
, and went comfortable to bed"