Floors castle

Visited Floors castle on our return from Samye Ling, the Tibetan monastery in Eskdalemuir.
 
It was a case of going from one extreme- the monks who have renounced all material possessions- to the grandest and largest inhabited house in Scotland dripping with priceless tapestries, art, china, and silver.
 
Why? Because we had never visited either before and it seemed a good idea to tick them both off our bucket list at the same time, to experience an extreme simple way of living and catch a glimpse of extreme wealth. . Also, I particularly wanted to see the collection of artwork, which included a small Turner watercolour, two Matisse’s, Bonnard, Reynolds, August John, Redon and Hogarth.
 
 
Floors castle  was built in 1721 to designs by William Adam and added to later by William Playfair in 1830.  Hence the curious mixture of the fairytale and the Gothic. (see extra photo).
 
This is a working castle where the Duke of Roxburgh lives here with his family on this 53,000 acre estate
 
To say it is impressive would be an understatement.
 
   
Both are little more than an hour’s drive of each other in the Scottish Borders and I would recommend a visit to both – for very different reasons.
   
Links: 
Tibetan monastery

Floors castle