The Guynd

by Belinda Rathbone

A woman from New England falls for a charming Scottish landowner only to discover she's also in a complex relationship with his family's 400-year-old ancestral estate, The Guynd. Funny and heartwarming, this is the story of a house, a place, and a marriage.



Guynd (rhymes with "wind") is Gaelic for "a high, marshy place." It's there that Belinda Rathbone's memoir takes place after her unlikely marriage and move to pastoral Scotland. There she learns to cope with a grand but crumbling mansion still recovering from the effects of two world wars, an overgrown landscape, a derelict garden, troublesome tenants, local aristocracy, Scottish rituals, and a husband who loathes change.

Alternating between enchantment and near despair, Rathbone digs into family and local history in an effort to understand her new surroundings and the ties that bind us through generations. "The book lifts and excels," wrote The New York Times, "Rathbone nails down a little bit of the Scottish soul in all its stark splendor."

The perfect book for anyone who loves a fish-out-of-water romance and a touching story of home.

Genres: Scotland, Memoir, Nonfiction, Travel, Biography, Autobiography, History

296 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Sarah Penner · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I knew when I married the man that I married the mansion.” Perhaps my favorite first line, ever.

I savored every page of this book, which left me feeling strangely nostalgic, wistful, yearning for something I’ve never experienced myself. Rathbone is an outstanding writer—even the most tedious furniture descriptions are somehow evocative and interesting—and she seamlessly blends the story of the Guynd’s disrepair with her growing marital frustration. I won’t spoil the ending, but it all fit together just perfectly for me.

Highly recommend.

[Rhode PVD · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the memoir of a northeastern upper middle class American woman who married a distant cousin, 15 years her senior, a Scottish laird. Nearly from start to finish, it defies any expectations you might have if you're used to romantic fiction or equally romantic stories of eager couples fixing up big old houses.

In part, it's because it's about the reality of a marriage between two fully formed, strong, and very different adults... Which is rarely as easy as rosy fiction would have it be.

And in part, fixing up an old house is a very different battle when one side is eager to make change and the other used to things as they've been for decades. And neither one is wealthy.

However, if you're not depending on this book as an escapist fantasy, you'll be pleased with what is there instead. Beautiful descriptions of the northeast Scottish landscapes, weather, people, seasons, and a perspective into a way of life that most can't see because they are blinded by the fantasy.

It's literate, thoughtful, occasionally funny, and only a little sad. A lovely peon to a decade living in a Georgian mansion deep in the Scottish countryside.

[Judy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a surprisingly unemotional account of a self-confidant American woman taking on the challenge of a husband 15 or so years her senior along with his "crumbling" ancestral home in rural Scotland. It proved to be a comfortable read, rather like visiting a friend. Not much action, but that's okay given the setting.

Her husband has an emotional connection to his home that he probably couldn't completely explain. There is no distinct line between man and mansion. I can understand that. Some people form strong attachments to a place, whether it be a building or an environment. I know that I feel most at home in the subalpine zone of the Rocky Mountains. And I know several people who have cabins that have been in their families for over a hundred years. It's hard for them to balance the "sense of place" that they so love, with the need to keep the places livable. What must be preserved? What is okay to change?

I'll keep this on my shelves, possibly to read again some time, or maybe to share with a friend.

[Tony Siciliano · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a gem of beautiful writing. ("Guynd" is pronounced like "wind" as in "Wind in the Willows.) It's the story of an American woman who marries an older heir to a Scottish manor. The journey into the Scottish landscape, its people, its eccentricities, its own semblance of a class system is charming and enlightening. The author's great effort at learning her husband's family history, the history of the manor, and the character of the man she married is a long, hilarious, frustrating, maddening journey. In the end, I was left deeply appreciating the challenges and wonderful rewards of life in rural Scotland. The poignancy of this part of the author's life remains as the final "taste" of this lovely story.

[Ann]

An entertaining look at life in a big old house in Scotland.
I enjoyed it until late in the book when the author becomes disillusioned with some tenants of the property and begins complaining about how lazy the lower class has become and blames the "nanny state" for peoples lack of motivation. What seemed a change in her character soured the book for me.

[Enchanted Prose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Would you marry the man if it meant restoring the 400-year old Scottish country estate he inherited? (Lowlands, Northeast Scotland, near Arbroath on the North Sea; 1990-2000): “I knew when I married the man that I married the mansion,” biographer Belinda Rathbone opens her immensely entertaining and evocative memoir, echoing Charlotte Bronte’s classic line when Victorian-era Jane Eyre declares, “Reader, I married the man.”

Reader, it will be up to you to decide whether restoring a four-centuries-old “crumbling” British estate in rural Scotland (near Dundee on the map below) – essential to accepting a marriage proposal – was a fairy-tale come true, or something else? Keep in mind this romantic notion meant stepping further back than Britain’s Victorian times to the Georgian and Regency eras when the Guynd estate was envisioned and built.

In 2021 the Regency era is hot owing to the Netflix series Bridgerton, inspired by the historical romance novels of Julia Quinn. So, it’s a fitting time to read this charming, good-spirited memoir originally published in 2005, republished in 2019.

When single 39-year-old Rathbone, raised in New England living in a Manhattan apartment said yes to marrying 53-year-old Scottish bachelor, John Ouchterlony, living in a flat in London, she thought she knew what she was getting herself into. She’d fallen in love with a boyish man “cut of the old cloth,” a mechanical engineer who had a deep respect for his ancestors and cultural Scottish heritage. She paints broadly how both her parents influenced her appreciation for art, antiques, history, and nature.

Googling, we discover both her parents had distinguished careers. Her father was an international art expert who’d been the director of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston for seventeen years (The Rathbone Years). We’re told her mother had British roots, subscribed to Britain’s gorgeous Country Life magazine, and was skilled in the “art of entertaining.” Looking further, we learn she was a ski racing champion on the slopes of the Swiss and French Alps. Fascinating biographies, but this is their daughters’ British story, fascinating too.

Belinda Rathbone, schooled in the fine arts, comes across as charming: eloquent, good-natured, good-humored, passionate, curious, resourceful, and literary. As a book lover, she imagined herself as “a character in a Jane Austen novel” when John proposed his fantastical proposition. But once married and moved into the Guynd mansion house she saw herself closing Austen’s Mansfield Park opening the Dickensian world of Bleak House. It didn’t take long to realize John was wedded to the past, adverse to change as he couldn’t bear to throw anything away, down to the torn stockings she’d thrown out. There’s no such thing as “waste” to a man intrigued by how everything works, and a savior for someday.

When does saving things cross the line? Psychologists diagnose hoarding as a disorder when it interferes with relationships and the quality of life. Yet, the couple found ways around their differences, with the author seeming to embrace the challenges, fully invested in bringing the Guynd back to life.

A different type of new life was awaiting amidst mind-boggling chaos and decay when Rathbone soon becomes pregnant. Now, she has even more reason to make her mansion home warm and comfortable. Her son Elliott is the biggest beneficiary, beginning life as an infant carried on his mother’s back seeing a fairy-tale world of ancient woodlands and parklands that offered a “sanctuary for birds and wildlife.” Four hundred acres worth. Early on he makes a pal, Christopher, often by his side. He’s treated to Christmas decorating parties, old-fashioned game-playing parties, parties at castles. All while his mother balances with remarkable ease dinner parties (making pains to use antique wares); hosting American and Scottish friends and relatives; enjoying the daily British ritual of afternoon tea; digging into family genealogies; and inviting a slew of historical societies to offer restoration advice and consultation on historical preservation grants as the estate is deemed a national treasure.

All while renovating, designing, and decorating a thirty-room estate home and gardens, and much more as the Guynd had been an “agricultural estate.” A farmhouse and farmlands are still occupied, minimally maintained by an old farmer barely seen. An overview map depicts these sites plus the original old house, the early-19th century mansion house, the walled gardens, a lake, and a lodge near the front gate.

What you don’t see is how grim the structures were; how dark, neglected, and threadbare the house and furnishings were, essentially untouched since soldiers were housed in it during WWII; the boathouse and temple by the lake; the terribly overgrown gardens disturbed by forty Christmas fir trees planted that failed to provide a thriving business; the shabby flats rented out on the east and west sides of the main house that attracted problematic tenants; cattle grazing in the distance; two horses boarded; and two dogs running free.

This is an overwhelming, overflowing mother’s plate, heightened by acclimating to another country used to a hard life. For a modern woman who expected modern-day conveniences unnecessarily exasperating, to be asked to wash clothes in an outdated washing machine housed outside the estate in the garage, which meant trekking in miserably cold and wet weather (Guynd means “high, marshy place” in Gaelic), and then discovering there’s no dryer! These revelations and obstacles happen over and over, but in Rathbone’s telling they feel part of the compromises made in a good marriage, though on a far grander scale.

Until we start to sense something else may be afoot.

When did things start to take a toll? When the newlywed had to tell her husband she needs a space to hang her clothing? When she can’t find a single working vacuum cleaner among a collection of vintage ones cluttering a hallway, enough for a “museum?” Humor is required and Rathbone has a flair for it, but when does this cease being funny?

To be fair, John relents to buying a Dyson machine for its high environmental marks as it’s bagless, thus no waste. What about wanting to paint the dreary yellowed walls fresh new yellow? The dining room Williamsburg Blue for soothing appeal? John eventually agrees to all, but not to equipping the frigid kitchen with an Aga stove ubiquitous in British kitchens for those who can afford it. He does find a substitute, and other inventive ways to assuage his wife.

For a home hidden five miles from any road, there’s a menagerie of people coming and going. One with staying power is an artist, Stephen, living long-term in one of the flats. He along with others join John in heavy labor jobs. Temporary tenants offer a perspective on how the British class system works between the landowner called laird and the working class. From how it used to be to how it operates in the 21st century.

Delighting in Elliot’s wistful and healthy nature-nurtured childhood, Rathbone’s professional work also explains why she devoted herself to the centuries-old estate. Referred to as a “photography historian,” she wrote the first biography of the photographer J. Walker Evans, whose famous black-and-white imagery depicted the Great Depression in America’s Deep South. Remarking she went from one plantation to a vastly different one, she now calls herself “a biographer of a country estate through the ages.”

Since Rathbone’s memoir ended a while ago, you can search where her story went after 2000. Suggest you wait until you’ve finished this outstanding book. It will leave you wondering: Did the marriage hold together after the estate was wonderfully brought to life?

Lorraine (EnchantedProse.com)

[Kate Buford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Small World book story: This was another title plucked off the freebie shelves at the Y, books donated by members. I started to read it because the world it describes is or was familiar and who can resist the REBECCA-like echoes of the new wife facing a big old British -- Scottish, in this case -- house?

When, early in the book, the American author, Belinda Rathbone, mentions driving by Fife in Scotland I thought, "I bet she knows Keith Adam," who owns Blair Adam near Fife. (That is "Adam," as in Robert Adam, one of the great British/Scottish architects of the 18th century.) She was clearly moving into the same social sphere and I had dated Keith back in my days at Trinity College, Dublin. We'd had a great time, going to the formal balls, dances (with dance cards), lavish parties back in the day when Trinity was still largely Anglo-Irish. The last I'd heard from him, decades ago, he had married the widow of another mutual friend, moved into the family estate, Blair Adam, and was valiantly facing the daunting work of fixing it up -- just as Rathbone does in this book with her husband's estate.

A few chapters later, it turns out she does indeed know Keith and his family, goes to visit them and becomes friends with his twin. It was a wonderful surprise to read of him and that house, about which he'd talked so much, so many years ago. Rathbone did what appears to be an amazing transformation of The Guynd, and it appears that Keith has done the same with Blair Adam. If you're into this kind of Old House story, this is a delightful and moving book and I'm not returning it to the Y, but keeping it.

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really enjoyable account of the realities of trying to renovate and rehabilitate a rundown stately manor in chilly old Scotland.

Belinda Rathbone is an American who married a reluctant and eccentric Scottish laird who was heir to a 400 acre ancestral home in Scotland called 'The Guynd.' Before their marriage, the laird, John Ouchterlony, had avoided the onerous responsibilities of the estate by living and working in London, but duty could not be denied and together they moved into The Guynd and began the long, slow process of trying to repair the house and gardens.

This book is enjoyable on many levels, mostly because of it's stark realism. Owning a huge house like this is not the romantic adventure many might expect. The conflicts between John and Belinda's priorites for the house and their very different personalities put a strain on a relationship that seemed odd from the start. As the house is slowly mended, their marriage slowly disntegrates.

Despite that this is still an enjoyable book. It is interesting to see Scotland and the British class system through Belinda's American eyes. Her observations on landowning, history, language and Scottish frugalism are really enjoyable. It's a shame there were no photos of the house and I would have really like to know what happened after the book ends. The blurb says that Belinda and their son Elliot are living back in the US. What's happened to The Guynd and John since then?

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Guynd (rhymes with "wind") is the name of the home that's been in Belinda Rathbone's husband's family for hundreds of years in Scotland. This book is actually more of a memoir of the Guynd, the surrounding structures, and the land. The author and her husband marry later in life, he in his mid-50s, she in her late 30s. I would have liked to have known more about the author's feelings rather than an unemotional accounting of her experiences. She does touch on the reasons behind the dissolution of her marriage, but I still felt that she was holding back a lot, maybe to protect her son or husband.

[Cynthia Bogart · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is in my top ten comfort read books that I pull out every fall. An American, Belinda Rathbone tells of her marriage to a Scottish Laird in the 1990's and how she falls in love with the house and the lifestyle it owns. During her journey of trying to bring the house, which has seen better days, back into a home, she discovers how this house was a passion, a refuge and a love to so many people. If you like Scotland, history, interior design and a love story, you'll like this book.

[Kirsten]

I was a fan of the Scottish series "Monarch of the Glen" about a young laird who has inherited a big country house and debt to go with it. The Guynd (which is non-fiction) brings us to similar territory, but with the addition of an American wife. Nicely written and plotted, the story is a fun read. Cozy up with a cup of tea and be grateful for your central heating...

[Mark · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very disappointing. It was very much an American view of the aristocracy of Scotland. Not being a part of that I can't verify if accurate, but it was patronising it bits (having son attend local school just to learn how to speak to locals when he grows up to be the laird). One for the American market not the Scottish!!

[Elaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating story -- American woman marries Scottish owner of estate late in life. The moral: you can change the estate perhaps more than you can change the man. Interesting peek into the world of old family estates and the baggage that comes with them.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read, that doesn't make living as a member of the nobility sound as glamorous as what you may think it would be.
I was saddened by the ending, but to be honest, as the author say, it is easy to see coming when you look back at what happened. I probably would have done the same.

[Judi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Belinda Rathbone lived one of my fantasies -- to inhabit and renovate a centuries-old family (her husband's) estate. But the reality of such a fantasy is far less romantic, as she describes in this memoir covering her decade or so at the Guynd in Scotland. I just ate this book up.

[Lucy Cummin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wry and wistful second look at a real life "ever after." Belinda Rathbone (American, of Boston) meets and marries John Ochterlony, heir to the Guynd, an small but venerable estate in the Scottish lowlands that has been in his family for over four hundred years, the centerpiece of which is a (small for a mansion) elegant Georgian house, built in the early 1800's. The estate comes with several hundred acres, an ancient Dower House (the original manse), cottages, the official farmhouse and much more. As Belinda throws herself into restoration--taking on the task of sorting and chucking all the broken, useless items that the family has collected over the centuries, removing the brown lino that has covered all the floors since the house was requisitioned in the second world war, scraping, plastering, painting she comes up, again and again, against an immovable obstacle: her husband. There is great affection between the two and a lot of common sense and they have a child together that both adore. I won't spoil, it's neither a happy nor unhappy ending, not even an ending, but more the way life tends to be, nothing neatly tied up and good intentions everywhere. I loved it, loved the descriptions, loved Rathbone's honesty. Highly recommended!

[Trish · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book slowly and enjoyed most of it. It was the book I read in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep; not because it was boring but because it took me away from whatever was keeping me awake.
I like that she told the reader how to pronounce some of the Scottish words and their meaning. The first was the title of the book-The Guynd, rhymes with "the wind" and means a high, marshy place.

I worried about her spendthrift husband, John, and his odd ways, and if their marriage would survive. She slowly learned so much about their crumbing, historical mansion, the grounds, and out buildings. He seemed trapped as its owner, passed down for four centuries. He was the one responsible for it all and keeping in the family.

I enjoyed how she learned the proper or best ways to improve the house and grounds. It didn't help that John was a packrat and didn't want anything changed. The mansion was freezing and they didn't have a descent stove in the kitchen. She learned the history of the house and its previous family owners, and how the laird fit in to local society. John was the 26th laird of The Guynd. She made many local friends and they had visitors for America. I wish I knew how long she and her son survived at The Guynd and what happened to John.

[Nikki · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was thoroughly engrossed by Rathbone's account of her marriage to a Scottish laird (estate owner). Her husband's large estate has been in his family for over 400 years and at this point, the land can no longer support the mansion home, gardens and other homes that dot the property (think Pemberly gone ghetto). Her attempts to renovate, redecorate and modernize were quite humorous, especially given her husband's frugality.

The most fascinating aspect of this account is Rathbone's discussion of identity. As an American, Rathbone's identity is formed primarily by her experiences and accomplishments. Her husband's identity is completely bound up in his home and the long line of ancestors that preceded him. Her impatience with this difference I found frustrating. How many of us would love to know where we came from and who preceded us? I found her solidly grounded husband to be refreshing.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book seems to have different titles. I bought one used that was called The Guynd: Love and Other Repairs in Rural Scotland and was published in 2005 and then republished in the US in 2019. I found the writing to pull me into the story and maybe that is why I feel so sad now having finished it because it is not a happy tale. The house gets improved, a child is born, and as far as I can tell, Rathbone comes back to the USA with her son and I don't know what happened to the house and the laird, her husband. (see NYT article at bottom of review)

I enjoyed seeing a video of Rathbone being interviewed about her book Boston Raphael and her father's escapade with what may have been a fake purchase for the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. I may look for her book on Rickey, a familiar artist for me from the Snite Museum at Notre Dame. Obviously she kept writing so her career progressed.

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/23/ga...

[Anne Lovett · Rating 5 out of 5]

This outwardly beautiful book is equally beautiful on the inside. Historian Belinda Rathbone begins: "I knew when I married the man I married the mansion." Almost as in a film, they met at a wedding--of a cousin of both. He had traveled from London for the event, she from New York. A conspiracy to throw them together ensued, and it turned out happily. And then she found out about his four-hundred-year-old family castle in Scotland.

And the man, she found, was inseparable from the castle. Which was not in good repair. Like most men, he had other things on his mind. I loved following Belinda as she struggled to do her best to fit into Scottish ways and update the dusty, moldy, damp--but beautiful--pile of stone, a place that would be worthy of his family history.

This beautifully written love story, this story of struggle, happiness, and tears, was one of my favorite reads.

[Emily Rozmus · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love a book about a house. The houses we inhabit, I think, are really just extensions of us. The leaky pipes or rotten floorboard. The refurbished bathroom or brand new couch. Whatever we lend to the house from ourselves is really so much of what that house is - whether it is a home or just an place to live. This book was definitely about how a house was an extension of its inhabitants. The problem was that both the author and her husband had a different idea of what that house should be. I don't think there was right or wrong in the end, but I was still sad as the story unfolded. I wonder about the house now and about each of the characters. I know the author is still writing. Is John still there at the Guynd? Has Elliot taken over as the heir? While John and Belinda's home ended, the Guynd surely endures.

[Sheila · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great story of an old home in Scotland, owned for centuries by one family. The ups and downs of its management are entertaining and revealing. On the other hand, the coming apart of of a May-December marriage is not so enjoyable, although candid. You know there is trouble when the ex-girlfriend is amazed that anyone would marry this man. I did like reading this book and in fact tried to do internet research on the present day status of what was described as a near ruin in 1990. The book was published in 2005, and from the looks of the web site, a lot has been , and spent, on fixing it. The pictures show a glorious restoration, and apparently the owners are involved in the very competitive field of weddings, parties, garden tours, and all the activities so necessary to keeping these homes going. I want to know the story of how this came about.

[Phoebe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fans of books like Downton Shabby will find something to interest in this account of the author's experiences marrying Scottish nobility and going to live on his ancestral estate. Rathbone describes integrating herself into a world that isn't like anything she's known before and articulates her frustrations with the frugal-to-the-point-of-cheap man she's married. She describes the "stuff" she encounters and attempts to throw away, only to be banned from doing so time and time again. Eventually we gather the marriage fails, after nine or ten years and a son and heir later. I enjoyed the read, as a kind of armchair adventure, but there isn't any way a reader will envy Rathbone or judge her for bailing back to America. Adult.

[Lisa Uotinen · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's an interesting look at Scottish aristocracy and their houses, particularly the large country homes. It's a look behind the scenes of a large, once beautiful estate that has stayed in the same families since the 1600s. It's a little sad, because it's no longer affordable for most of the aristocracy to keep these homes the way they need to be kept. The author is also describing a failing marriage, between the lines, so that adds a bit to the sadness of the story. But it's not a long book; many such books are about 3 times longer than they need to be. This is the perfect length for me, to tell her story.

[A.D. Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed Belinda’s imagery, Scottish country knowledge and the way she shared her journey of marriage to both an estate and Scotsman at once. You felt real empathy for her plight, cheered for her successes and ultimate community acceptance, plus her wins with the household and property. The growth she experienced was wonderful to see and though I wasn’t too surprised at how her personal relationship ended up, I was proud of the progress she’s made along the way. Cheers to you Belinda on a beautiful memoir! I enjoyed that thoroughly and it is inspiring me to finish my own Scottish tale!

[Tessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just closed this book and am feeling quite torn. At times in the book, Rathbone is so engaging, particularly in the last part. But the middle definitely drug on for me, to the point where I put it down and didn’t pick it back up for several weeks. I supposed I expected more about Scotland than just about an old Scottish mansion and the turmoils of Rathbone’s marriage. But that is no ones fault other than my own for having different expectations. Nonetheless, Rathbone’s voice is prevalent throughout the book and I can only say that I wish it had ended differently.

[Kathy Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book for its insight into Scottish land ownership and the responsibility of inheritors when family property is passed down from generation to generation. It's written by an American who becomes involved with a Scottish gent and continues when they move to his family's run down estate, The Guynd, in Scotland. Many interesting details of the Scottish way of doing life are revealed as challenges in the relationship unfold at The Guynd.

[Mary Berger-Hughes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read. Loved Downton Abbey so interesting to read what goes into keeping the old homes liveable. The war years took their toll on the families and the houses.

The Scots are frugal... to the point of being amusing.

[Michelle Ule · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rathbone is an excellent writer and does a fine job describing the ten years she spent with her laird in a crumbling mansion in Scotland.

Engaging and interesting, the memoir ends abruptly, but I enjoyed it very much.

[Mya · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this memoir more than I thought I would, as I'm not usually a fan of non-fiction. I think if you're interested in old houses or Scotland (or both, in my case), then you will enjoy this story of an American woman who marries a "Laird" from Scotland and heads off to be the lady of the manor. The story is well-written, and she does a good job of keeping things interesting.