0:00:13 > 0:00:17It's not many young boys who can lay claim to their very own castle.
0:00:17 > 0:00:21But when I was growing up in the Scottish Borders, this place
0:00:21 > 0:00:23was my playground.
0:00:32 > 0:00:36It was built by a man once known as the Wizard of the North,
0:00:36 > 0:00:40and to me his shadowy creation certainly seemed enchanted.
0:00:43 > 0:00:48It was only later I discovered it was magical as well.
0:00:49 > 0:00:52I remember first visiting here when I was eight years old
0:00:52 > 0:00:55and looking up at these two shields here -
0:00:55 > 0:00:57one with my name, Stuart, emblazoned on it
0:00:57 > 0:01:01and the other painted with the name of my younger brother Douglas.
0:01:01 > 0:01:05I didn't realise then that they referred to Clan Douglas
0:01:05 > 0:01:09and the House of Stuart, the Kings of Scotland until 1688.
0:01:09 > 0:01:12For a small boy with a big imagination, it seemed as
0:01:12 > 0:01:14if there was some kind of supernatural
0:01:14 > 0:01:17connection between me and this house.
0:01:17 > 0:01:20In fact, for many years after that I was convinced that one day
0:01:20 > 0:01:22I would probably end up living here.
0:01:26 > 0:01:29Of course it was all part of the fantasy.
0:01:31 > 0:01:33But then fantasy is what makes this place.
0:01:36 > 0:01:39Abbotsford House was built by Sir Walter Scott -
0:01:39 > 0:01:42mythmaker, inventor of history,
0:01:42 > 0:01:44and the 19th-century's bestselling author.
0:01:46 > 0:01:49But I knew Abbotsford long before I knew Scott.
0:01:49 > 0:01:52It is to my shame that I didn't read his novels, non-fiction
0:01:52 > 0:01:54and poetry until my twenties.
0:01:57 > 0:01:59Like many Scots of my generation, I think
0:01:59 > 0:02:03I was slightly embarrassed by the shortbread tin stereotype,
0:02:03 > 0:02:08the tartan-trimmed phoney Caledonia that I thought Scott had invented.
0:02:08 > 0:02:11But when at last I finally did read his books,
0:02:11 > 0:02:13I discovered something that completely changed my view,
0:02:13 > 0:02:17not just of the man, but of this marvellous madcap house he built.
0:02:21 > 0:02:24Abbotsford is reopening to the public after an extensive
0:02:24 > 0:02:26refurbishment that returns the building
0:02:26 > 0:02:29to how it was in Scott's lifetime.
0:02:32 > 0:02:3413,000 treasures that Scott collected for his
0:02:34 > 0:02:37"Conundrum Castle" are being unwrapped
0:02:37 > 0:02:41and put back in place ready for the big day.
0:02:41 > 0:02:45That work has revealed even more secrets about this house
0:02:45 > 0:02:47built by books.
0:02:50 > 0:02:54When I first came to Abbotsford, I cared more about Doctor Who
0:02:54 > 0:02:56than 19th-century fiction.
0:02:56 > 0:03:01And yet Abbotsford is a kind of crashed TARDIS where the past,
0:03:01 > 0:03:03present and future are deliriously jumbled together.
0:03:25 > 0:03:29It is just a few hectic weeks before the reopening of Abbotsford House
0:03:29 > 0:03:32and one of its most evocative treasures is being unpacked...
0:03:36 > 0:03:38..Scott's own writing desk.
0:03:41 > 0:03:45It's just a small mahogany piece of furniture,
0:03:45 > 0:03:47rather unprepossessing actually.
0:03:48 > 0:03:53But it witnessed the birth of quite an extraordinary output.
0:03:53 > 0:03:56This desk saw the creation of 12 volumes of poetry,
0:03:56 > 0:04:0032 volumes of non-fiction, literally tens of thousands of letters,
0:04:00 > 0:04:06and 48 volumes of novels including Waverley, Ivanhoe, Rob Roy,
0:04:06 > 0:04:08and my personal favourite Redgauntlet.
0:04:10 > 0:04:14Scott was the bestselling author of his day.
0:04:14 > 0:04:17The 19th-century equivalent, if you like, of JK Rowling.
0:04:17 > 0:04:21He was published everywhere from Edinburgh to London, India to
0:04:21 > 0:04:26America, and translated into French, Swedish, Italian, even Mohawk.
0:04:26 > 0:04:30Abbotsford was not just the crucible for this astonishing
0:04:30 > 0:04:34outpouring of work, it was a work of art in its own right.
0:04:34 > 0:04:40As Scott himself said, "It was a romance in stone and lime."
0:04:45 > 0:04:48Abbotsford is a palace and a paradox.
0:04:48 > 0:04:50It is the creative expression
0:04:50 > 0:04:52of a distinctly Scottish split personality.
0:04:56 > 0:04:59Born in Edinburgh in 1771,
0:04:59 > 0:05:01Walter Scott was a man divided between two worlds.
0:05:03 > 0:05:06At the end of the 18th century, the Scottish capital was fizzing
0:05:06 > 0:05:10with new ideas, new philosophies, and a new sense of reason.
0:05:10 > 0:05:15A trained lawyer, Scott was very much a man of the Enlightenment.
0:05:17 > 0:05:21But he was also a romantic drawn to the old Gothic ballads
0:05:21 > 0:05:24and ancient supernatural stories of the countryside
0:05:24 > 0:05:28around the River Tweed where he spent much of his childhood
0:05:28 > 0:05:30and where he eventually built Abbotsford.
0:05:36 > 0:05:39During the recent renovation work on the building, the workmen made
0:05:39 > 0:05:41an intriguing discovery.
0:05:42 > 0:05:47If I just prise up this temporary cover, I can show you.
0:05:49 > 0:05:50It's a well.
0:05:50 > 0:05:53This is the last remnant of the original building which
0:05:53 > 0:05:54stood on this site,
0:05:54 > 0:05:59a set of dilapidated farm cottages known locally as "Clarty Hole" -
0:05:59 > 0:06:01"clarty" meaning dirty.
0:06:01 > 0:06:03When Scott bought the property in 1811,
0:06:03 > 0:06:06he immediately renamed it Abbotsford.
0:06:06 > 0:06:09Far more romantic than "Clarty Hole".
0:06:11 > 0:06:13I think it's oddly moving there's this secret well
0:06:13 > 0:06:15hidden at the heart of Abbotsford.
0:06:15 > 0:06:18If Abbotsford is anything, it's a wellspring,
0:06:18 > 0:06:21a place where the past continually bubbles up, where nothing can be
0:06:21 > 0:06:23hidden forever, and it chimes exactly
0:06:23 > 0:06:26with the kind of stories Scott told
0:06:26 > 0:06:30in this place that he called his "flibbertigibbet of a house".
0:06:38 > 0:06:42The past is always present in Abbotsford and in Scott's work.
0:06:45 > 0:06:48This is a place where skulls are mantelpiece ornaments
0:06:48 > 0:06:51and suits of armour are the decor of choice.
0:06:51 > 0:06:56It's a box of yesterdays, a cabinet of curiosities,
0:06:56 > 0:07:00a surrealist cut-up.
0:07:01 > 0:07:04Scott didn't conceive of Abbotsford just as a home,
0:07:04 > 0:07:09it was a museum, a reliquary where the glories of the past
0:07:09 > 0:07:11were enshrined in the present.
0:07:11 > 0:07:16This eccentric house was not just where the past came alive,
0:07:16 > 0:07:19it was where the past stayed alive.
0:07:23 > 0:07:29This is how crazy Abbotsford is as a house. It's the kind of place
0:07:29 > 0:07:33you've got to go out of a window when you're trying to find a door.
0:07:37 > 0:07:40This is the door of the old tollbooth prison, from Edinburgh.
0:07:40 > 0:07:43Scott managed to salvage it when the building was being demolished.
0:07:43 > 0:07:47It is a great example of how he literally incorporated
0:07:47 > 0:07:49the past into Abbotsford.
0:07:49 > 0:07:51And he did not just build it into his home,
0:07:51 > 0:07:52he built it into his novels, too.
0:07:52 > 0:07:55It is here in The Heart Of Midlothian,
0:07:55 > 0:07:57the novel which takes its title from the nickname
0:07:57 > 0:07:59for that notorious prison.
0:07:59 > 0:08:02"That seems a very strong door," said Sir George.
0:08:02 > 0:08:04"It is so, sir" said Butler,
0:08:04 > 0:08:07"but it was my misfortune at one time
0:08:07 > 0:08:10"to see it proved greatly too weak."
0:08:19 > 0:08:22In his novels, Scott didn't just describe historical events,
0:08:22 > 0:08:26he inhabited history as much as he did this house.
0:08:28 > 0:08:31His characters are all formed by history -
0:08:31 > 0:08:35history is the hidden character in all of his books.
0:08:35 > 0:08:38It was this that inspired everyone from Dickens to Tolstoy
0:08:38 > 0:08:43and which decisively shaped how his own home country imagined itself.
0:08:46 > 0:08:49Scott invented Scotland,
0:08:49 > 0:08:53from the ballads he collected that would otherwise have been lost,
0:08:53 > 0:08:56through to the narrative poems when he described the Trossachs,
0:08:56 > 0:08:59the Borders and the Isles,
0:08:59 > 0:09:02to the novels, where he showed how the Act Of Union,
0:09:02 > 0:09:04the Jacobite rebellion,
0:09:04 > 0:09:09even the rise of spa towns changed what it meant to be Scottish.
0:09:13 > 0:09:18O Caledonia, stern and wild Meet nurse for a poetic child
0:09:18 > 0:09:23Land of brown heath and shaggy wood Land of the mountain and the flood
0:09:24 > 0:09:28Land of my sires What mortal hand
0:09:28 > 0:09:33Can e'er untie the filial band That knits me to thy rugged strand?
0:09:35 > 0:09:39But it wasn't just Scotland, it's sometimes forgotten that
0:09:39 > 0:09:42Scott wrote many novels set in England as well,
0:09:42 > 0:09:45and it is in those books we get such famous
0:09:45 > 0:09:49stories as Walter Raleigh putting down his cloak for Elizabeth
0:09:49 > 0:09:52to cross a puddle, or Robin Hood splitting
0:09:52 > 0:09:55the Sheriff of Nottingham's arrow in the centre of the bull's-eye.
0:09:55 > 0:09:59Scott created a version of history where Jacobites
0:09:59 > 0:10:03and Hanoverians or Cavaliers and Roundheads or
0:10:03 > 0:10:05Saxons and Normans could clash and
0:10:05 > 0:10:07out of that clash create something better.
0:10:11 > 0:10:14Scott's most audacious piece of national mythmaking
0:10:14 > 0:10:19came in 1822 when he stage-managed the visit of George IV to Edinburgh.
0:10:24 > 0:10:28Scott even persuaded the King to wear a kilt for the occasion -
0:10:28 > 0:10:31quite an irony given that within living memory rebellious highlanders
0:10:31 > 0:10:34had tried to overthrow the Royal Family.
0:10:36 > 0:10:39Satirists might have poked fun at the fat king,
0:10:39 > 0:10:43but Scott's coup de theatre sparked a rage for all things Highland.
0:10:46 > 0:10:49Scott created many of our national myths,
0:10:49 > 0:10:52and he did so with a theatrical panache that proved wildly popular
0:10:52 > 0:10:55not just in Britain, but abroad.
0:10:57 > 0:11:00This is rare footage of the early silent film Ivanhoe,
0:11:00 > 0:11:05one of two cinematic versions of the novel made in 1913,
0:11:05 > 0:11:09and one of the first American movies to film on location in Britain.
0:11:10 > 0:11:14Scott's action-packed historical extravaganzas were perfect
0:11:14 > 0:11:17fodder for dramatic adaptation.
0:11:17 > 0:11:24His works spawned over 4,000 movies, TV series, stage plays and operas.
0:11:25 > 0:11:27Wander around Abbotsford
0:11:27 > 0:11:30and you will discover similarly theatrical qualities.
0:11:32 > 0:11:35Scott never meant Abbotsford to be a po-faced
0:11:35 > 0:11:38and precise replica of a medieval castle.
0:11:38 > 0:11:43He meant it to be a stage set. Nothing is quite as it seems.
0:11:43 > 0:11:46Take, for example, this ceiling.
0:11:46 > 0:11:51It looks like a carved medieval wooden ceiling, in fact, parts of
0:11:51 > 0:11:55it are copied from Rosslyn Chapel, made so famous by The Da Vinci Code.
0:11:55 > 0:11:58But it's not a genuine piece of the past.
0:11:58 > 0:12:02It's made of wood pulp, plaster and glue,
0:12:02 > 0:12:04moulded and painted to look like wood.
0:12:06 > 0:12:11For Scott, the term "artificial" was the highest form of praise.
0:12:11 > 0:12:13He may have been besotted with the past,
0:12:13 > 0:12:16but that didn't mean it has to be pure or even authentic.
0:12:21 > 0:12:24Despite, or maybe because of the larger-than-life
0:12:24 > 0:12:28quality of Abbotsford, it had a huge influence on architectural style.
0:12:30 > 0:12:32For his Victorian admirers,
0:12:32 > 0:12:37Abbotsford provided a vision of a chivalric past, far removed
0:12:37 > 0:12:40from the perplexing realities of the industrial present.
0:12:40 > 0:12:42It spawned a whole host of imitators,
0:12:42 > 0:12:47including that model of feudal nostalgia, Balmoral Castle.
0:12:47 > 0:12:52But Abbotsford isn't all gleeful pastiche and phoney medievalism.
0:12:54 > 0:12:58Scott enjoyed all the benefits of modern industry as well.
0:12:58 > 0:13:00He had one eye fixed on the past,
0:13:00 > 0:13:03but the other was looking to the future.
0:13:09 > 0:13:13I love this, this is one of the pneumatic servants' bells
0:13:13 > 0:13:14that Scott had installed.
0:13:14 > 0:13:19Basically, you pushed it and somewhere in the bowels
0:13:19 > 0:13:23of the building, the little pop gun would go off to summon a servant.
0:13:23 > 0:13:25Abbotsford, when it was built,
0:13:25 > 0:13:28was the most technologically sophisticated home in Scotland -
0:13:28 > 0:13:31it was not just pneumatic servants' bells,
0:13:31 > 0:13:36it had central heating, gas lighting and even flushing lavatories.
0:13:36 > 0:13:41Abbotsford was steampunk before steampunk was invented -
0:13:41 > 0:13:44a combination of nostalgia and cutting-edge technology.
0:13:44 > 0:13:46The same features can be found in his novels.
0:13:46 > 0:13:48In Tales Of The Crusaders,
0:13:48 > 0:13:52he imagined a "steam powered novel writing loom" -
0:13:52 > 0:13:55an automatic machine for producing fiction.
0:13:57 > 0:14:01Whereas other poets at the time thought of the writer as a dreamer,
0:14:01 > 0:14:04only Scott imagined him as a machine.
0:14:09 > 0:14:13Abbotsford was part artwork and part creative factory.
0:14:14 > 0:14:17Whenever Scott was depressed or creatively stuck,
0:14:17 > 0:14:23he went out to plant trees or tend his flower and vegetable garden.
0:14:26 > 0:14:29Scott never subscribed to the more egotistical notions about what
0:14:29 > 0:14:32it meant to be a celebrity author.
0:14:32 > 0:14:37"I pride myself more," he said, "on my composition for manure than
0:14:37 > 0:14:41"any composition whatsoever to which I was ever an accessory."
0:14:48 > 0:14:52What I have come to love most about Scott is what a paradox he was.
0:14:53 > 0:14:56He seemed to thrive on contradiction.
0:14:56 > 0:15:00He was an international celebrity who saw through the fame game,
0:15:00 > 0:15:02a man of the city and a country squire,
0:15:02 > 0:15:06a legal brain and a romantic poet.
0:15:08 > 0:15:10Nothing illustrates Scott's omnivorous
0:15:10 > 0:15:14interests as much as his library.
0:15:20 > 0:15:24Over the past ten years, work has gone on to catalogue the huge
0:15:24 > 0:15:27collection, revealing just how amazingly diverse it is.
0:15:29 > 0:15:33I think the library is the unwritten biography of Scott.
0:15:33 > 0:15:37We can see his huge range of interests in the contents,
0:15:37 > 0:15:39ranging from popular culture
0:15:39 > 0:15:42to very high serious tomes.
0:15:42 > 0:15:45- It's not just Shakespeare and the classics, is it?- Not at all.
0:15:45 > 0:15:49It's very hard to find a subject that he doesn't have a book on.
0:15:49 > 0:15:51You've actually got some of the library here,
0:15:51 > 0:15:54which I feel in awe that we are getting to touch his books.
0:15:54 > 0:15:57I have seen them so often behind the cages.
0:15:57 > 0:16:00This is the first book of fairy stories published by the
0:16:00 > 0:16:04Grimm brothers that Scott wrote and asked them to send him.
0:16:04 > 0:16:07Scott then sent them books in return.
0:16:07 > 0:16:11This is a letter from Jacob Grimm to Scott.
0:16:12 > 0:16:17- He wrote in German and Scott wrote in English.- That is astonishing.
0:16:19 > 0:16:21Why was Scott obsessed with fairy stories?
0:16:21 > 0:16:24It came, I would think, from his childhood when he was ill
0:16:24 > 0:16:28and he went to the Borders and was brought up by his grandparents
0:16:28 > 0:16:30who told him all the Borders stories,
0:16:30 > 0:16:34which may be the very beginning of his life as a writer.
0:16:34 > 0:16:37Although we think of him as an 18th-century man of reason,
0:16:37 > 0:16:39he's fascinated by things like witchcraft.
0:16:39 > 0:16:42That's right. He had a huge collection of witchcraft,
0:16:42 > 0:16:46they were the few books that in his time he kept behind locked doors.
0:16:46 > 0:16:48This is a manuscript, a Rosicrucian manuscript.
0:16:48 > 0:16:52It was probably made so it could be circulated clandestinely,
0:16:52 > 0:16:56because they were considered politically a bit dangerous.
0:16:56 > 0:17:02It has all kinds of illustrations of esoteric things - there's
0:17:02 > 0:17:05the Ark Of The Covenant with the two cherubs,
0:17:05 > 0:17:09astrology and kabbalah and alchemy.
0:17:09 > 0:17:12He was almost a precursor to Dan Brown in this way.
0:17:12 > 0:17:17- Yes, Dan Brown would be at home here. - What is this final book?
0:17:17 > 0:17:20This is interesting,
0:17:20 > 0:17:23this is the first book that was published in Tasmania.
0:17:23 > 0:17:26It was about Michael Howe, who was a bushranger and outlaw.
0:17:26 > 0:17:27I just love these headings.
0:17:27 > 0:17:31"Narrative of the chief atrocities committed by this great murderer
0:17:31 > 0:17:34"and his associates during a period of six years in Van Diemen's Land."
0:17:34 > 0:17:37It's almost like the Sun, isn't it?
0:17:37 > 0:17:39There are a lot of books like the Sun!
0:17:41 > 0:17:44Scott has a huge collection of what he calls eccentric biographies.
0:17:44 > 0:17:49He is very interested in highway women, in pirates,
0:17:49 > 0:17:53in people who lived on the edge of life.
0:17:57 > 0:17:59Scott's day job as a lawyer and sheriff
0:17:59 > 0:18:01meant he was well acquainted
0:18:01 > 0:18:04with the less respectable and even the violent side of life...
0:18:06 > 0:18:09..and he had a sneaking sympathy with the perpetrators.
0:18:11 > 0:18:14One poacher who turned up in his dock, Tom Purdie,
0:18:14 > 0:18:15ended up as his factotum and gardener.
0:18:21 > 0:18:26Violence and violent men always held a certain glamour for Scott.
0:18:34 > 0:18:37If any contemporary author
0:18:37 > 0:18:40had a collection of weapons like this in their home,
0:18:40 > 0:18:43then I can imagine that they would be receiving a visit
0:18:43 > 0:18:45from the local constabulary.
0:18:45 > 0:18:48You have to wonder why Scott had such a collection.
0:18:48 > 0:18:52Well, Scott suffered from polio as a child,
0:18:52 > 0:18:57and his disability meant he never achieved his genuine ambition -
0:18:57 > 0:18:59to be a soldier.
0:19:04 > 0:19:06Nearly everywhere in Abbotsford,
0:19:06 > 0:19:09you can sense its creator's frustrated desire
0:19:09 > 0:19:10to be a man of action.
0:19:14 > 0:19:17But there are one or two places where you get a glimpse
0:19:17 > 0:19:21of an altogether more private and tender side to Scott's personality.
0:19:31 > 0:19:34This is the drawing room, and it's absolutely exquisite.
0:19:34 > 0:19:36The wallpaper was specially made in China.
0:19:36 > 0:19:40I could spend hours looking at the crowded, colourful life it contains.
0:19:40 > 0:19:44Scott, of course, had a taste for the exotic.
0:19:44 > 0:19:47He wrote novels set in Palestine and India.
0:19:47 > 0:19:50But if this room seems rather different from others in Abbotsford,
0:19:50 > 0:19:53that's because this was the domain of Lady Scott.
0:19:58 > 0:20:03Scott married French-born Charlotte Charpentier in 1797,
0:20:03 > 0:20:06after a courtship that lasted only three weeks.
0:20:07 > 0:20:10She was the love of his life.
0:20:13 > 0:20:17Unlike Byron or Burns, Scott wasn't a ladies' man.
0:20:17 > 0:20:20In fact, he was delightfully faithful.
0:20:20 > 0:20:23After Charlotte's death, Scott said that he had been heartbroken
0:20:23 > 0:20:27for two years - "my heart handsomely pieced together again,
0:20:27 > 0:20:30"but the crack will remain to my dying day".
0:20:45 > 0:20:491826 was Scott's very own annus horribilis.
0:20:52 > 0:20:54Haunted by Charlotte's death,
0:20:54 > 0:20:57he sought solace in his beautiful gardens.
0:20:59 > 0:21:03But this was the year another unexpected disaster struck.
0:21:04 > 0:21:08Life at Abbotsford would never be the same again.
0:21:11 > 0:21:15In 1826, Scott's London publisher lost a great deal of money
0:21:15 > 0:21:19after having invested in hops for ale, of all things.
0:21:19 > 0:21:22As the publisher tried to balance the books,
0:21:22 > 0:21:24a dreadful secret was revealed -
0:21:24 > 0:21:29the whole time, Scott had been a sleeping partner in the business
0:21:29 > 0:21:33and the company had insufficient capital to cover its debts.
0:21:33 > 0:21:38Scott found himself personally liable for £117,000.
0:21:38 > 0:21:43That's the equivalent in today's money of 5.8 million.
0:21:44 > 0:21:48Scott's business partners took the easy route and filed for bankruptcy.
0:21:48 > 0:21:52But that was an option that Scott could not countenance.
0:21:52 > 0:21:55If he filed for bankruptcy, he would lose Abbotsford.
0:21:57 > 0:22:00Scott chose not to declare himself bankrupt.
0:22:01 > 0:22:04Instead, he would write himself out of debt,
0:22:04 > 0:22:07just as he had written himself into a fortune.
0:22:07 > 0:22:10"My own right hand shall pay," he said -
0:22:10 > 0:22:14anything to keep his most beloved creation, Abbotsford.
0:22:23 > 0:22:27This secret staircase was originally a playful piece of stagecraft
0:22:27 > 0:22:30allowing the Wizard of the North to magically disappear
0:22:30 > 0:22:35from his study when unwelcome guests came to call.
0:22:35 > 0:22:36But it now became a necessity.
0:22:40 > 0:22:44Every morning before dawn, he would come quietly down these steps,
0:22:44 > 0:22:48sparing his household the brutal the early start that his work
0:22:48 > 0:22:49now demanded of him.
0:22:54 > 0:22:57The man who had once imagined a steam-powered loom
0:22:57 > 0:23:02for churning out novels now had to turn himself into a writing machine.
0:23:07 > 0:23:09But not even a man of Scott's colossal energies
0:23:09 > 0:23:13and vivid imagination could outrun his troubles.
0:23:14 > 0:23:18In the early 1830s, he suffered a series of strokes
0:23:18 > 0:23:21and was sent by his doctor to the Mediterranean
0:23:21 > 0:23:23in the hope that the warmer climate would help him.
0:23:28 > 0:23:29It didn't.
0:23:32 > 0:23:34His final wish was to die at home.
0:23:39 > 0:23:41Scott became more and more ill.
0:23:42 > 0:23:47He was trepanned - a hole drilled into his skull.
0:23:47 > 0:23:50A friend said he appeared "like a man mortally drunk".
0:23:52 > 0:23:55At times, Scott hallucinated he was King Lear.
0:23:58 > 0:24:01Abbotsford had been a museum, a stage set,
0:24:01 > 0:24:04a showcase for new technology,
0:24:04 > 0:24:07a stately pleasure dome for parties and conviviality.
0:24:07 > 0:24:10Now, it was also a mausoleum.
0:24:10 > 0:24:13Scott's bed was brought down here to the dining room,
0:24:13 > 0:24:15so that in his dying moments,
0:24:15 > 0:24:18he could gaze out over his beloved River Tweed.
0:24:50 > 0:24:54Almost immediately after Scott's death in 1832,
0:24:54 > 0:24:57Abbotsford became a literary shrine -
0:24:57 > 0:24:58a place of pilgrimage.
0:25:02 > 0:25:05Scott's castle attracted huge numbers of visitors,
0:25:05 > 0:25:10including some of the greatest names of the day.
0:25:10 > 0:25:13In here we've got Charles Dickens and his wife.
0:25:13 > 0:25:15- At the bottom here.- Here he is.
0:25:15 > 0:25:18Charles Dickens, that's Charles Dickens, and just Mrs Dickens?
0:25:18 > 0:25:20- And Mrs Dickens, yes.- Wonderful.
0:25:20 > 0:25:25And then in this other one, we have Oscar Wilde's signature.
0:25:25 > 0:25:29- He came to visit the house here. - There it is.
0:25:29 > 0:25:31Oscar Wilde, London, between somebody from Copenhagen
0:25:31 > 0:25:33- and somebody from Galashiels.- Yes.
0:25:33 > 0:25:37- It's a pity we don't get a comments section down the side as well.- Yes.
0:25:37 > 0:25:39So, Jeanette, your family has
0:25:39 > 0:25:42a very long-standing connection with Abbotsford.
0:25:42 > 0:25:45Yes. My family have been working here since 1900, actually.
0:25:45 > 0:25:50My great-grandfather came here to work as a forester in 1900,
0:25:50 > 0:25:53and there's been family worked here ever since,
0:25:53 > 0:25:57including myself, for quite a considerable time.
0:25:57 > 0:25:59So when you first started working here,
0:25:59 > 0:26:01what kind of people were coming to Abbotsford?
0:26:01 > 0:26:05People from all over the world - America, Canada, Australia -
0:26:05 > 0:26:10but the surprise visitors we had were actually Russian trawlermen.
0:26:10 > 0:26:12They had sailed into Ullapool
0:26:12 > 0:26:16and then on their days off they made their way here to Abbotsford.
0:26:16 > 0:26:20- From Ullapool? That must be a 500-mile round trip.- It is indeed.
0:26:20 > 0:26:23It really shows you how highly he was regarded
0:26:23 > 0:26:26- outside of the British Isles. - Definitely, yes.
0:26:32 > 0:26:36It's the last few days before Abbotsford reopens to the public.
0:26:37 > 0:26:40There's a real sense of excitement in the air.
0:26:41 > 0:26:44This project isn't just about restoring Scott's home.
0:26:46 > 0:26:49In a way, it's also about re-examining his legacy.
0:26:51 > 0:26:54Whereas Walter Scott has remained popular
0:26:54 > 0:26:59and widely read abroad, at home, critics have sought to demolish him.
0:26:59 > 0:27:03He's decried as the inventor of twee Scottishness
0:27:03 > 0:27:05and Celtified pageantry.
0:27:07 > 0:27:08In some ways,
0:27:08 > 0:27:12the Wizard of the North became a victim of his own success.
0:27:12 > 0:27:15The spell he cast over Scottish history was so powerful
0:27:15 > 0:27:17that it almost became a parody.
0:27:19 > 0:27:23Just as Abbotsford started a craze for crow-stepped gables
0:27:23 > 0:27:27and thistle-topped turrets, so it's argued that Scott's novels
0:27:27 > 0:27:31and poems plundered the past to build a vision of Scotland
0:27:31 > 0:27:33unblemished by modernity.
0:27:34 > 0:27:38But for me, the real question is whether, without Scott,
0:27:38 > 0:27:40we would have any national identity at all.
0:27:42 > 0:27:45I think in some ways we are in danger of losing
0:27:45 > 0:27:48Scott's most important message.
0:27:48 > 0:27:50His books, and this building,
0:27:50 > 0:27:54shows how you can own the past without being imprisoned by it.
0:27:54 > 0:27:57After all, this is the man who transformed the mucky farmyard
0:27:57 > 0:28:02of Clarty Hole into the playful fantasy of Abbotsford.
0:28:06 > 0:28:12As he himself said, "There's nothing so easy to invent as a tradition."
0:28:12 > 0:28:16I think we should be rather grateful to have had an inventor
0:28:16 > 0:28:19of such imagination and such generosity.
0:28:52 > 0:28:56Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd