The Scotsman

There is no writer's house I know of that speaks so clearly and evocatively of the personality and interests of the author as Sir Walter Scott's Abbotsford. There is also a certain dramatic irony in the conjunction of uncertainty over its future with Edinburgh's successful bid to be nominated as a World City of Literature; for, though Abbotsford is in the Borders, it is less than 40 miles from Edinburgh and Scott, who divided his time between town and country, is certainly the greatest literary figure to have lived and worked in Edinburgh. His Edinburgh house, 39 North Castle Street, was sold, for the benefit of his creditors, in 1826. Abbotsford might have had to go the same way, but, fortunately, Scott had made it over to his elder son as part of a marriage