Gattonside

Gattonside is a small village in the Scottish Borders. It is located 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) north of Melrose, on the north side of the River Tweed. In 1143, the lands of Gattonside were granted to the monks of Melrose Abbey by David I of Scotland.^[2]

Modernist architect Peter Womersley lived in Gattonside at his self-designed house, The Rig, completed in 1957. The Rig was designated as a Category B listed building on 17 April 2007 as a "fine example of domestic house built by Peter Womersley".^[3]

The village is linked to Melrose, on the opposite side of the River Tweed, by the 19th-century Gattonside Suspension Bridge, built in 1826. The plantation owner, Robert Waugh of Harmony Hall was a shareholder who on his death in 1832 left his shares to the poor of Melrose.^[4] The bridge was designated as a Category A listed building on 15 March 1971. Its listing was amended to Category B in 1998.^[5]

Gattonside House is a 19th-century country house in Gattonside, built between c.1808–1811 in the Classical style.^[6] The earliest recorded owner is James Brown (d. 1816), owner of a Jamaican coffee plantation.^[7] The house was occupied between 1821 and 1824 by Sir Adam Ferguson, Deputy Keeper of the Scottish Regalia and close friend of Sir Walter Scott.^[8] The following owner of the property, retired banker George Bainbridge (c.1788–1839), employed local architect John Smith to enlarge it.^[8] Following Bainbridge's death in 1839, the house had a number of occupiers, and from around the early 1890s appears to have been leased to tenants by Henry Mungall (c.1843–1911), a local provost and manager of the Fife Coal Company.^[9] On Mungall's death, the property was sold to Edward Ebsworth (c.1848–1915) who commissioned Robert Lorimer to extend and alter it.^[6] The house was sold by Ebsworth's relatives in the 1920s,^[10] following which it was owned by Captain Francis Montgomerie (1887–1950), younger son of the Earl of Eglinton and Winton, whose family left in 1951.^[11][12] Following a brief period of occupation by John Morgan,^[13] the property was bought by the Brothers of Charity, who ran the house as St. Aidan's Care Home for the Mentally Handicapped from 1953 until 2009.^[14][15] From the institute's departure in 2009, the property fell into a state of disrepair, and as of 2024 it was estimated that replacing the damaged roof alone would cost £850,000.^[15] In 2025, the property was bought by Fortis Homes, a development firm, which announced plans to convert the house into apartments, and use its grounds to build new housing.^[16] The house was designated as a Category B listed building on 15 March 1971 as "a well-detailed early 19th-century Classical villa".^[8]

• Neil Murray, bassist who was born in Gattonside.^[17]
• Peter Womersley, architect who lived at his self-designed Gattonside house, The Rig.^[3]

• Sir Adam Ferguson, Deputy Keeper of the Scottish Regalia.^[8]
• General Alexander Duncan, officer of the East India Company army in Bengal.^[18]
• Patrick Fraser, Lord Fraser, Senior Lord-Ordinary of Edinburgh Court of Session.^[19]
• Captain George Swinton, politician.^[20]
• John Morgan, 6th Baron Tredegar, peer and landowner.^[21]

• Peter Womersley's self-designed home, The Rig, 2016.
• Gattonside Suspension Bridge in 2020.