Traquair is famously the oldest inhabited house in Scotland and its heart dates from the 12th century.

However most of what you see is 16th and 17th century and this preoccupation with age distracts a little from the enormous charm and historic interest of this most romantic house, set by the banks of the gently flowing River Tweed. Love and merriment seem more at home here than the hazardous existence of its fiercely Jacobite and Catholic owners, who were for many years anchored in a part of the country that generally held opposing allegiances.

A tour of the house is included and you cannot help but be drawn into its history: see the rosary and crucifix of Mary Queen of Scots (an earlier guest of the Lairds of Traquair) and the cradle that once rocked King James VI. A later Stuart prince was the last to see Traquair's Bear Gates open. They are shut now until a Stuart is once more on the throne.

The present Laird still lives in a wing of the castle.