Scotland · Restored
Nisbet House
Nisbet House is a 17th-century Scottish country house in the Merse, built around 1630 and incorporating an earlier square pele tower. A square tower in the classical style was added to the west end in 1774; the building and estate remain a private residence and are protected as a category A listed building.
Its prime
1774
Today
Restored
As it stood in 1774
What Nisbet House looked like in its prime.
Long two-storey ashlar stone mansion set in low-lying farmland on the north bank of the Blackadder Water, with a taller square west tower rising above the main block. Regular vertical sash windows punctuate the facades; the west tower has classical proportions and a plain stone parapet. The eastern end incorporates an older, squatter pele-tower core. The house is approached across open fields and stands behind a belt of mature deciduous trees.
Its story
The story of Nisbet House.
East and West Nisbet: The Twelfth-Century Pele Towers
The Nisbet family built two fortified houses or pele towers in the 12th century, East Nisbet and West Nisbet. East Nisbet, later known as Allanbank, stood on the Blackadder Water near Allanton, though the original tower no longer exists. Wester Nisbet remains, and Nisbet House now stands on the north side of the Blackadder Water, 2.5 kilometres south of Duns, in the Merse, the low-lying country of the former county of Berwickshire. Architectural evidence suggests that the present house incorporates the square pele tower at its eastern end.
Sir Alexander Nisbet, Charles I and the Sale of 1652
The surviving tower was extended in the 1630s to form the bulk of the present house. The laird at the time was Sir Alexander Nisbet of that Ilk (c. 1580–1660), ancestor of the heraldic authority Alexander Nisbet (1657–1725). Sir Alexander overextended his finances in supporting Charles I in the Civil War, and was forced to sell the property to John Ker in 1652.
The Kers and the Adam-Style Tower, 1652–1774
John Ker's son by his second wife, George Carre, Lord Nisbet, was born at Nisbet around 1700. In 1774 a square tower in the classical style of William Adam, with fine interior plasterwork, was added to the west end.
From Lord Brocket to the Modern Restoration
The house remained with Ker descendants, latterly in the person of Lord Sinclair, until the 1950s, when the estate was sold to Lord Brocket. After partial modernisation it was sold again in the mid-1960s to a local farmer, and remained unoccupied until a comprehensive restoration returned it to use as a private residence. It was listed at category A on 9 June 1971.
Step inside
7 places to explore in 1774.
The record describes 7 distinct spots at Nisbet House, including 1 interior: principal room in the 1774 tower. Create your own photoreal reconstruction and explore every one, more scenes means more rooms, more angles, and more of the place to stand in.
Build Your Own Castle
Recreate Nisbet House with AI to explore it.
The artist rebuilds it as it stood in 1774, a photoreal reconstruction that belongs to you alone. Pay with coins, no subscription needed.
Recreate this castle →Defend this castle →Whose castle
Clans who held Nisbet House.
The families that held Nisbet House for a decade or more across its history, follow a name to its clan.
Nisbet
The Nisbets held the site from their 12th-century pele tower until Sir Alexander Nisbet, ruined by supporting Charles I in the Civil War, sold to John Ker in 1652.
John Ker bought Nisbet in 1652, and his descendants, latterly Lord Sinclair, kept the house until the estate was sold to Lord Brocket in the 1950s.
