Temple of the Muses

The memorial which we see today is not the original. In 1817, the 11th Earl of Buchan had erected the Temple, in the form of a Greek pavilion, as a tribute to James Thomson, the Ednam poet, who wrote 'The Four Seasons" and the words for 'Rule Britannia'. Sited on Bass Hill, it originally contained a statue of Apollo, the Greek God of music and poetry, but this has long vanished. The neo-classical pavilion, however, with a bust of Thomson on the pinnacle, remained, and it was into this that the new statue by Siobhan O'Hehir, a local artist, was placed. It offers a new and modern perspective on our relationship with nature which fits well with the old pavilion, which, in style, is timeless.
The funding for the new sculpture and the refurbishment of the pavilion and the surrounding area, came through the Tweed Interpretation Project, part of the Heritage Lottery Funded, 'Tweed Rivers Heritage Project'.

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