THE future of Abbotsford House, the stately home of Sir Walter Scott, is to pass out of his immediate family for the first time since his death in 1832.

Trustees of the A-listed 19th-century mansion, where Scott wrote Waverley, Rob Roy and Ivanhoe, said that no living family members were prepared to take on the financial risk of maintaining the property near Melrose in the Borders.

About £10 million is needed to secure Abbotsford’s long-term future and talks are taking place between the trustees and Historic Scotland and the National Trust for Scotland. Plans to sell the property on the private market have been ruled out.

The National Trust said yesterday that until a more permanent solution was found it was supporting the trustees by seconding a property manager to run Abbotsford, which attracts more than 30,000 visitors a year. It said, however, it was unable to take on the house without an endowment to pay for future maintenance and repair. It is likely that a fund-raising appeal will be launched soon.

Until last May, Abbotsford was managed by Dame Jean Maxwell-Scott, 80, the great, great, great grand-daughter of Scott and his last direct descendent. Before her death she spoke of her hope that it would stay in the family.Trustees contacted more than 40 relatives, mostly in Australia and Canada, but none took on the job.

Scott bought Cartleyhole farmhouse, on the Tweed, in 1812 and set about enlarging it to ten times its original size. By 1822 he had transformed it into a romantic, fortified manor with turreted towers and interiors packed with relics of national and family history.

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