Mellerstain House

Mellerstain House is one of Scotland’s finest Georgian country houses, situated a short distance from Gordon village in Berwickshire. Designed in two phases by William Adam and his son Robert Adam, it is a Category A listed building and remains the family home of the Earls of Haddington.

History

The story of Mellerstain begins in the early eighteenth century. George Baillie of Jerviswood and his wife Lady Grisell Baillie, a celebrated figure in Scottish social history and one of the most distinguished women of her age, commissioned William Adam to design a new house on the estate. Adam completed the two wings between 1725 and 1729, but the central block was never built during this period and the wings stood independently for several decades.

It was not until 1770 that George Baillie’s grandson, also George Baillie, engaged Robert Adam to complete the house by linking the two wings with a grand central mansion block. Robert Adam chose a bold castellated style for the exterior, making Mellerstain one of the earliest examples of what became known as the Adam Castle Style. The work was completed around 1778.

The estate has remained within the Baillie family ever since. The Haddington title entered the family in 1858 when a Baillie-Hamilton succeeded to the Earldom of Haddington, uniting the two properties. The house is today the home of George Baillie-Hamilton, 14th Earl of Haddington, and has been managed by the Mellerstain Trust since 1986.

Architecture and Interiors

The exterior of Mellerstain is characterised by its striking battlemented profile, with the two original Adam wings flanking the central block that Robert Adam added in the 1770s. The contrast between the relatively plain exterior and the extraordinary richness of the interiors is one of the house’s defining qualities.

Inside, Robert Adam designed a series of state rooms whose plasterwork ceilings and decorative schemes survive largely in their original colours. Seven rooms display Adam’s signature light and precise ornamental style, with delicate mouldings and carefully composed colour palettes. The Library is widely regarded as one of Adam’s finest achievements: the ceiling, completed in 1770, depicts Minerva flanked by representations of Teaching and Learning, and the room contains marble busts by the sculptors Roubiliac and Scheemakers. The collection of paintings and furniture within the house reflects the tastes of successive generations of the Baillie family.

Gardens and Grounds

The formal gardens at Mellerstain were laid out in the early twentieth century by the architect Sir Reginald Bloomfield. They descend from the house in a series of three terraced levels, with stone balustrading, staircases and statuary, opening out to parkland and a lake beyond. The combination of formal structure and open landscape creates a setting that complements the scale of the house. In 1998 the gardens were awarded the Historic Houses Association and Christie’s Garden of the Year award.

Mellerstain and Gordon

Mellerstain House sits within an estate that has long been part of the wider landscape surrounding Gordon village. The proximity of a house of this scale and significance has shaped the character of the area, and the estate remains a notable presence in the local landscape of Berwickshire. The house lies approximately eight miles north of Kelso, with Gordon village a short distance further north.