Abbotsford was built by Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), a romantic writer enamoured of Scotland, its landscapes and its mysterious past. He lived here for many years, gradually transforming the small farmhouse into a sumptuous home. The house contains mementoes of a great writer as well as his collection of "gabions", a word he invented to cover "curiosities of small intrinsic value". They often related some part of Scotland's chequered history.