The Kerr family acquired the lands in the sixteenth century; the Kerrs themselves are an old Borders family, recorded in the Lowlands from the 12th century. Monteviot itself is an ancient site, and Dere Street, the Roman road from York to Newstead at Melrose (Trimontium), runs through the park. The present house of Monteviot began as an early-eighteenth century lodge built by the 1st Marquis of Lothian. In the nineteenth century Monteviot, was greatly admired and was developed into the principal seat of the Marquises of Lothian. Ambitious designs from Edward Blore were commissioned for a Jacobean-style mansion at Monteviot in 1832 but never completed, leaving the modest Georgian house and Blore’s elaborate Jacobean-inspired office wing side by side. In 1961 the interior was re-planned to the design of Schomberg Scott.
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