Tax avoidance is nothing new. Jenny Needham finds out how it was done in the 18th Century.

WE had wanted to take the dog on our mini break to Scotland, but the rules of the house stated clearly “No Dogs”, so Meg was left at home. In retrospect, perhaps we should have smuggled her in. After all, it would definitely – defiantly, even – have been in the spirit of the place.

From the outside, Gunsgreen House is a palladian- style mansion overlooking the harbour at Eyemouth, near Berwick, in the Scottish borders. It was clearly built to shout its owner’s wealth to the world and dwarfs everything else in the vicinity.

Inside, Gunsgreen is a different story; one of smuggling and tax avoidance on a huge scale. From its inception, hidden spaces were included in the fabric of house specifically for hiding away large quantities of smuggled goods.

Now part-museum, part-holiday let, Gunsgreen was built in the early 1750s, days when smuggling all along the coast of the British Isles was rife; whole villages complicit in the lucrative trade.

As a visitor to the town in the early 19th Century noted: “At one time all the people, high and low, young and old, rich and poor were more or less engaged in smuggling, and no house was built without a view to accommodations for contraband goods. The whole town still has a dark, cunning look, is full of curious alleys, blind and otherwise, and there is not a single individual house of any standing but what seems as if it could unfold its tales of wonder.”

The wonder in Gunsgreen’s case is that its owner got away with smuggling so much for so long.

The huge mansion was commissioned in the 1750s by John Nesbitt and his two brothers David and Patrick, who were successful Eyemouth merchants by day and smugglers by night. It was known by the locals as The Big Hoose, or the Mansion House, and heaven only knows what the locals thought when it was built, as few would ever have seen such a big home.

The brothers commissioned fashionable Edinburgh architects John and Robert Adam to design the house, though the plans didn’t show the secret small rooms, passageways, openings in the fireplaces and tea chutes, where the contraband was hidden.

In the Georgian period, many houses also had dummy windows, to avoid the hated window tax, and the space between the back of the window and the lath and plaster wall was also perfect a smuggling store. Gunsgreen has three such windows at the back.

A tea chute under the floor on the top landing of the four-storey mansion is large enough to hold six cases of loose tea, which was imported from China, often through Sweden where Nisbett had many contacts. Considerable profits made from smuggling tobacco and brandy ashore, but vast fortunes were built on the running of tea.

Nisbett’s business finally fell foul of the authorities and he was declared bankrupt in 1787 and the house sold. Two years later, a lawyer said of him: “Mr Nesbitt himself was a professed smuggler and although designated merchant in Eyemouth, it is well known that he dealt in no other than this traffic, which he carried on to a very great extent.”

Its notorious days over, Gunsgreen passed through many hands until 1912, when local couple William and Wilhemina Douglas began to run it as a guesthouse. This was in the town’s heyday as a seaside attraction.

For the next half century, paying guests flocked to the town: in the Thirties, as a young lad, comedian Stanley Baxter was a regular visitor at Gunsgreen.

Visitors from Newcastle and Tynemouth flocked to the town in the Fifties. There was a putting green on the seafront, a bowling green and tennis courts in town. There were bathing boxes with deckchairs for hire on the beach and a paddling pool and trampoline on the prom. There were Saturday night dances in the town hall with singers like Lulu, Craig Douglas and Rolf Harris, and Acker Bilk stopped by with his band.

When the tourist trail ran cold, the building was bought by the town council and it served as the Eyemouth golf club clubhouse until the late Nineties, when the Gunsgreen House Trust was set up to raise money to restore it.

And what a good job they have done. The basement and ground floors have been turned into a heritage centre with tales of smuggling, shipwreck and witch-burning in the once-busy port.

The top two floors of the house, which sleeps 11, is now an unusual and upmarket holiday let. The place has been done out in heritage colours, there are five bedrooms to choose from, a small but serviceable kitchen, three bathrooms and a superb sitting room would be fantastic for a weekend away with friends.

The place is furnished in a stylish mixture of old and new, but the bathrooms are modern with a few touches you don’t expect.

When you emerge from the centrally-situated rolltop bath in the master bathroom, for example, you can wander over to the wall and open what looks like a cupboard. Inside is the huge gap in the walls and a beam at the top to which a pulley would have been attached, where Nesbitt and his fellow smugglers would hoist up the contraband.

The house may have all modern comforts, but the past is very much still with you. And while I don’t want to put anyone off staying there – it’s a stunning house – at night it’s just a little bit spooky.

There are creaks and squeaks and banging noises. It could just be the east wind rattling the casements and shutters. It could be a gang of ghostly smugglers dragging their illicit cargoes into their Scottish hideaway.

Or perhaps someone smuggled their dog into the walls and forgot to take it home.

Where to eat

IT’S quite a surprise to find a modern, glass terraced bar/bistrol like Oblo at the centre of such a traditional fishing community, but it’s a nice surprise. It offers food all day, from a Scottish Borders breakfast to a supper menu which includes dishes such as Tiger Prawns Pil-Pil, whole Eyemouth haddock and Confit of Barbary Duck. The ambience is good, the service friendly and the food tasty and well presented.

■ Oblo, 18-20 Harbour Road, Eyemouth, Berwickshire, TD14 5HU. Tel: 018907-52527.

■ See gunsgreenhouse.org or book via cottages-and-castles.co.uk