PAXTON — TWEEDHILL — SUSPENSION-BRIDGE. 19 



The village of Paxton, and the elegant mansion-house * of the same name, are 

 the first objects that arrest attention. The first, as the locale of the popular song 

 of " Robin Adair,"f and the second as possessing a gallery of choice paintings by 

 Italian and Flemish masters, will form an agreeable incident to the lover of 

 Scottish song, and offer attractions to every admirer of the fine arts. The 

 trees in this quarter of oui- route present a scene of great luxuriance. Broad- 

 meadows, Spittal-house, and Tweed-hill, are severally fine objects in the 

 landscape : the first, by its light Grecian style of architecture, and ihe fine white 

 freestone of which it is built, is particularly attractive ; while another* and 

 important feature has just sprung up in the form of a handsome parish church. 



The Old Hall, crowning a precipice over the Whittadder, in the opposite side 

 of the parish, is a rare specimen of Border fastness, and probably the most 

 perfect relique of the order to which it belonged. 



The new iron suspension-bridge over the Tweed at this point, is one of the 

 greatest acquisitions the country possesses, and at the same time one of the 

 finest specimens in existence of modern invention employed as a medium of social 

 and commercial intercourse. The daily inconvenience — besides serious accidents 

 and loss of life — to which the inhabitants were so long subjected, has thus been 

 completely remedied ; it admits two carriages abreast, affords the usual accom- 

 modation for foot passengers, and has proved of incalculable benefit to the public. 

 The whole of this light and elegant structure is composed of malleable iron, 

 measures 360 feet in length, weighs only a hundred tons, and was erected in 

 1820, under the skilful and scientific directions of Captain S. Brown, of the 

 royal navy. 



To the readers of the Border History, it is proper to mention, that the learned 

 editor of that work, of which his brother, the minister of Stitchell, is understood 

 to have written the greater portion, was a late incumbent of Hutton parish — and it 

 would have been difficult to have selected a better station for the arrangement of 

 the vast fund of materials which it must have taken so many years of laborious 

 research to accumulate. Hutton is also to be noticed as the birth-place of 

 Andrew Foreman, who became conspicuous in the early part of the sixteenth 

 century as bishop of Moray, archbishop of Bourges in France, and at a later period 

 archbishop of St. Andrews — dignities which were showered upon him as the 

 reward of his great political talents, and the judicious employment of them. He 



• It was here that the late Mr. G. Home, of Wedderburn, the friend of Mr. Henry Mackenzie, Lord 

 Craig, and other celebrated contemporaries, spent many years of his hfe, and divided his time between the 

 society of eminent men and the active duties of public life. 



t Vide Chambers. 



