TRAQUAIR House featured in a BBC documentary last week, hailed as one of few Scottish estates challenging decades of patriarchy.

'Lady Lairds' follows females from across the country in the day-to-day trials of running a country home in the 21st century, as they buck the trend in this traditionally male-dominated world. 

Catherine Maxwell-Stuart, is the first lady Laird of Traquair and has run the estate near Innerleithen full time since 1999. The programme gives a rare insight behind the doors of the historical Borders estate, Scotland's oldest inhabited house, which dates back to 1109.

The house has been visited by 27 Scottish Kings and Queens including Mary, Queen of Scots. 

Catherine has strong family links to Queen Mary, and if the Catholic royal succession had not been defeated in the Jacobite rising of 1745, Catherine could now even be Queen of Scotland.

Her mother, Flora, is thrilled with her daughter's title as first Lady Laird. "I can't tell you how wonderful it is that she's running the estate," she said. "All parents want their children to do it but the children give up quite quickly because it's not the glamorous life you think it could be.

"It's a lot of paperwork and secretarial work, but she adores the house as she was brought up in it since she was a baby.

"I was brought up in a time where I wouldn't have went to university or anything, now women can do anything can't they!"

Catherine lives at Traquair with her husband Mark and three children.

The Lady Laird said: "It's remarkable, I cant believe its all still here and everything has survived so long. It's a burden and a privilege...but more a privilege."