The Muses

April 5, 2023  Dryburgh; Haig and Scott burial site 

Dryburgh Abbey in the Borders is said to have been founded by St. Modan ~600 AD.  However, no evidence is known to exist to support that claim.  

Therefore, dating can only be done by the existing ruins at Dryburgh and the history it tells.  It was established in 1150 AD by Hugh de Morville, Lord of Lauderdale, hereditary constable of Scotland.

As previously mentioned, Dryburgh Abbey is a special place.  With the fresh aroma of damp forests evident when we visited, it is almost contemplative, or meditative in the zen sense, with the River Tweed's quiet rush slipping by.  Tranquil.  Or perhaps spiritual.  It is easy to see why White Abbot monks (Premonstratensian) chose this spot on a remote bend in the River Tweed. 

April 5, 2023 Dryburgh Abbey

Further posts regarding  Dryburgh Abbey are reserved for another day.  This particular post regards a nearby point of interest, specifically the Temple of the Muses which can (and definitely should) be added to any itinerary taking in the serene Dryburgh Abbey.

April 5, 2023 Dryburgh; ancient yew

Getting to the Temple of the Muses is an easy walk, only about 4/10ths of a mile from Dryburgh Abbey's car park.  The walk was actually enjoyable along the banks of River Tweed.  Being level with asphalted single track roads, it was an easy walk.  A word to the wise, though.  Water repellent gear is advised for springtime sojourners.  Being Scotland, spring weather can shift quickly.  When we walked the track, for example, it was misting an "almost rain"--which definitely added to a damp chill.  Eventually, the weather lifted, but still. 

April 5, 2023  The Four Seasons 

The temple currently contains four bronze statues which depict the "Four Seasons".  Sitting atop a cairn-like rise above River Tweed (known as Bass Hill), the temple has a domed roof supported by nine columns.  These nine columns represent the Muses of classical Greece, although their number and their names differed widely depending on the specific ancient classical region.

April 5, 2023 Temple of the Muses 

According to Hesiod (c. 700 BC), the Muses were the nine daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne.  Generally speaking, they were the personifications (or deities) of knowledge and the arts, especially poetry, literature, dance and music.  Their names and their patronages were as follows:  

• Calliope (epic poetry)
• Clio (history)
• Polyhymnia (hymn and mime)
• Euterpe (song)
• Terpsichore (chorus and dance)
• Erato (lyric poetry)
• Melpomene (tragedy)
• Thalia (comedy)
• Urania (astronomy and astrology) 

April 5, 2023  Dryburgh Abbey

I mentioned "currently contains" four bronze statues.  That is because the current bronzes are replacements of a sort.  Commissioned to artist Siobhan O'Hehir and installed in 2002, they are hardly historic.  O'Hehir (b. 1966), a fairly well-known semi-abstract landscape artist, resides in the Borders village of Ancrum (through which we toured in 2023).  O'Hehir's Muses depicted the Four Seasons and are somewhat unusual given O'Hehir is known more for works in oil on canvas.  

O'Hehir's Four Seasons is a celebration of nature and the landscaping established at Dryburgh Abbey by David Steuart Erskine, 11th Earl of Buchan (June 1, 1742 - April 19, 1829), who bought the abbey estate in 1786 after it had passed through several hands in the intervening hundreds of years following the Reformation. The Earl of Buchan was considered somewhat eccentric in his day.  By modern standards though, he was visionary.  And the grounds at Dryburgh attest to this.  

April 5, 2023 Temple of the Muses

In 1817, the Earl of Buchan is said to have completed the construction of his temple, which originally housed a bronze statue of Apollo with the nine Muses.  A small discrepancy on dates exists.  

In the original temple, on the capital of each Doric column, was the name of one of the nine muses, inscribed in metallic characters that was the work of John Ruthven of Edinburgh.  He likely was also the sculptor of the original Apollo bronze.  

No architect is mentioned in connection with the ‘fanciful erection’ of the temple, but apparently it was the work of Buchan himself, working with his favored mason John Smith of Darnick.  (Smith also worked for Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford, and also created the large statue commemorating William Wallace nearby.)  

As to discrepancies, it is recorded in August 1812 that "a grand fete took place at Dryburgh" wherein the new temple was the centerpiece of the revelry.  This was five years before most say the temple was completed.  The 1812 record mentions the columns as bearing the names of the nine Muses, although it does not directly mention the Apollo bronze.  Perhaps the Apollo bronze was commissioned and finally placed in 1817 completing the structure.

Regardless, by the second half of the century, Buchan's temple was dismissed as ‘a very commonplace building’.  Its Georgian appeal was lost to the Victorian age.  The temple's Apollo bronze, as well as the lettering at the top of the columns, went missing at some point in the latter half of the 1800s.  The temple itself survived only because it became engulfed in foliage and largely forgotten. 

April 5, 2023 Gauging station at Dryburgh on the Tweed

The Earl of Buchan, incidentally, was a correspondent with US President George Washington, and gifted Washington in 1791 a now missing snuff box, crafted by the Goldsmith's Company of Edinburgh.  The box, according to Buchan, is constructed of silver and the oak which was supposed to have sheltered Sir William Wallace after he was betrayed to the English and forced to fight at the Battle of Falkirk on 22 July 1298.  Braveheart and all that.  

Upon his death, Washington's final will recommited the box to Buchan, who insisted on bequeathing it back to the Washington's University of Columbia in August 1800.  In the midst of these transfers, the box was stolen at some unknown point in the 1800s.  A reward was offered--to no avail.  It has been claimed that in 1958 the snuffbox was in the possession of an Ian Keith Mackintosh of Wadhurst, Sussex County, England (Country Life, 123 [9 Jan. 1958], 74).  But it's location remains unknown.

April 5, 2023  Dryburgh grounds

Buchan admired Scotland’s most revered poet, Robert Burns.  But he was particularly enthralled by James Thomson (1700 - 1748), ‘the Bard of Ednam’.  (Ednam is a nearby village where the poet was born.)  Thus, Buchan dedicated his Temple of the Muses at Dryburgh to Thomson, and even sought to have Thomson further commemorated by monuments in Scotland and London.  As said, he was somewhat eccentric.

April 5, 2023  Dryburgh Suspension Bridge

The poet Thomson's most famous work, The Four Seasons, is a series of four poems.  The first published was Winter, in 1726, followed by Summer in 1727, Spring in 1728, and Autumn in 1730, when the completed series was published.  Thomson also wrote the famous Rule Britannia! in 1740, an anthem now revered by the Royal Navy. 

April 5, 2023  Dryburgh foot bridge

 

As an added bonus to the walk to the Temple of the Muses there is, at the bottom of the temple mound, the Dryburgh Suspension Bridge over River Tweed.  We walked across it, just to say we did.  This suspension footbridge was erected in 1872 to connect villagers to worship at the churches in St. Boswell.  The bridge was a replacement of the cable-stayed bridge which the Earl of Buchan commissioned and opened August 1, 1817.  Less than six months later, Buchan's bridge collapsed in hurricane force winds in January 1818.