January 23 2014

Scotland’s ‘first house’, a distinctive black and white former Toll Bar cottage on the border with England, is to reopen as a coffee shop after lying empty for several years.

Familiar to cross border travellers the property was previously used as a runaway marriage venue before closing its doors in 2008.
Now its owners, Gretna Green Ltd, have announced they will undertake a full refurbishment of the property to allow it to trade as a coffee shop this summer.

Brian Douglas, operations director at Gretna, said: “It's an incredibly iconic building and deserves to be put back into sympathetic use. We had always intended to bring it back into appropriate use as soon as possible.

“We recently restored all the black and white livery to its former glory and interior conversion work will begin in January for an early summer opening.”

Interior works will see contemporary fittings installed and the vaulted ceiling opened up.

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