Annotation:Marchmont House

Find traditional instrumental music
Revision as of 21:09, 22 December 2017 by Andrew (talk | contribs)

Back to Marchmont House


MARCHMONT HOUSE. AKA and see "Irish Grove (The)." Scottish, Jig. D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABBCCDD. The Earls of Marchmont commissioned a new residence and Marchmont House [1] [2], designed by Thomas Gibson (influenced by Robert Adam), was built to replace nearby Bedbraes Castle in Duns, Berwickshire, in the Borders region. It was built around the year 1754. In the 20th century it was the home of the McEwan family for a time before being sold to Sue Ryder Care for use as a nursing home in the 1980s. It has been sold again to private owners.

Marchmont House, from a c. 1911 postcard



John Glen (1891) finds the earliest appearance of this tune in Robert Bremner's 1757 collection, reprinted by Joshua Campbell in his Collection of Newest & Best Reels & Minuets ... (1788). It also was entered into the c. 1788 music manuscript collections of flute player Thomas Molyneaux, an ensign in the 6th Regt. stationed at Shelburne, Nova Scotia, and of John Rook (Waverton, near Wigton, Cumbria, 1840). London publishers the Thompsons included the tune in a 1788 country dance collection under the title "Irish Grove (The)."

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Bremner (A Collection of Scots Reels), 1757; p. 23. Carlin (Gow Collection), 1986; No. 441. Gow (Complete Repository), Part 3, 1806; pp. 34-35. Laybourn (Köhler’s Violin Repository vol. 2), 1881-1885; p. 121.

Recorded sources:




Back to Marchmont House