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Gardie House is an 18th-century estate house, unique in Shetland. The Henderson family owned Gardie from the 17th century, and in 1724 Magnus Henderson (died 1753) had the present house built. The builder was a mason from Aberdeen named Forbes. The double-pile plan of Gardie was relatively novel in the early 18th century. The symmetrical arrangement of walled gardens leading down to a harbour was laid out at the same time. The drawing room contains fine wooden panelling, installed around 1750.
The house passed out of the Henderson family in 1799, and was inherited by Elizabeth Nicolson and her husband Thomas Mouat of Garth, the builder of Belmont House on Unst. Their nephew, William Mouat, added the porch and constructed the steading and Gothic cottage in the grounds. Sir Walter Scott dined at Gardie House during his 1814 visit to Shetland. In 1905 the house was altered, and remains privately owned. In 2001, the owner was John Hamilton Scott, Lord Lieutenant of Shetland.
References:The city walls of Avila were built in the 11th century to protect the citizens from the Moors. They have been well maintained throughout the centuries and are now a major tourist attraction as well as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Visitors can walk around about half of the length of the walls.
The layout of the city is an even quadrilateral with a perimeter of 2,516 m. Its walls, which consist in part of stones already used in earlier constructions, have an average thickness of 3 m. Access to the city is afforded by nine gates of different periods; twin 20 m high towers, linked by a semi-circular arch, flank the oldest ones, Puerta de San Vicente and Puerta del Alcázar.