Merchant's House, Eyemouth Review (sleeps 11)

AD - Thanks to our writer Gaia for this post who stayed with Merchant's House in January as part of a press trip. This post was published in Feb 2025. Always check details with venue direct when booking for the most up-to-date info.

Merchant’s House, Eyemouth

 

We discovered a lovely new place by the coast, just over the border in Scotland recently. It’s steeped in history and full of character, perfect for a weekend away as it’s less than 1.5 hours from Newcastle.

Merchant’s House (aka Gunsgreen House) in Eyemouth is a historic building in a pretty little fishing port just north of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and is more than big enough for family get-togethers - it sleeps 11!

 

The house is the first thing you notice when you reach the harbour in Eyemouth, it really stands out! Built in the 18th century by a rich merchant, it has plenty of room and the location makes it perfect for a weekend by the coast.

 

Highlights:

• Pet friendly and accessible with a lift to the accommodation 

• There are 5 bedrooms which are big and spacious (one even has a four poster bed!) and there are 3 very nice, hotel style bathrooms

• They are currently offering a 10% discount if you book direct through their website: https://gunsgreenhouse.org/

• Lovely living room with plenty room for a family/friends gathering (the accommodation sleeps up to 11 guests)

• Nice touches for kids including a dolls house and games
  

• Right next to a working harbour where you can watch the fishing and RNLI boats coming in and going out

• There’s a small playpark right next to the house and another one by the beach 

• Feed the seals - for £3 you can feed the seals which swim around the harbour!

• There are amusements and a swimming pool within walking distance

• Very good fish and chip shop, ice cream parlour and cafe 5 minutes walk

 

Check in/parking

We were emailed directions and Merchant’s House is well signposted with brown heritage signs once you’re in Eyemouth so it was simple to find. There is a free car park next to the building which was empty when we arrived, so plenty of space for parking. Access to the house is round the back via an access code. There’s a lift up to the floor where the accommodation is (the bottom floors are part of the museum and the accommodation is two floors at the top), and one of the bedrooms is on the floor that the lift takes you to.

 

Living room and Dining room

The living room is large – it has four sofas! With beautiful tall ceilings and sash windows. There is a new TV with access to Netflix etc. There’s also a dolls house in the living room and a little table and chairs for pre-schoolers, which is a nice touch.

 

The dining table is huge and perfect for a big group of people to gather round. In the hallway there are books and board games that you can help yourself to, and there are also high chairs and cots available.

We loved looking out of the sash windows and watching the fishing boats come and go with their catches, very relaxing!

 

Bedrooms and bathrooms

There are 3 double bedrooms, one twin and one room that has 3 single beds in it. One bedroom is ‘downstairs’ on the same level that the lift takes you to, and the rest are up a flights of stairs.

The bedrooms on the top floor have interconnecting doors, which can be handy with small children. There are 3 bathrooms, one of which has a roll-top bath, they are all modern and clean.

 

Kitchen

The kitchen is well equipped, modern and bright and importantly has a dishwasher. We cooked in there on the first night (mexican for the grown ups and pizzas for the kids) and eveything was easy to find.

There was more than enough crockery, cutlery and serving dishes for a large group, so we didn't need to do much washing up (yay!) There are cafetieres for coffee (no coffee pod machine) so make sure you bring ground coffee.

 

About Merchant’s House

The house was built by a merchant who was secretly also a smuggler and he had chutes and fake windows built into the house to hide his goods.

This makes for an interesting treasure hunt around the house, finding the little doors and reading the information behind them. Our kids (age 6-10) loved running around and exploring the house. 

 

Thing to do Eyemouth

 

We absolutely loved Eyemouth. The house has direct access to the harbour, which we walked around several times. On the Saturday after we arrived we walked round the harbour to the beach, which was a brilliant place to collect sea glass and clamber over rock pools.

There’s a lovely little walk leading up to cliffs, and there are two cannons on top, which is all that remains of the fort that used to be there. The kids loved climbing on them! If you want a bigger walk or boat trip (boats run in in Spring/Summer) then St. Abbs is just along the coast and is meant to be very beautiful.

 

After our walk we headed to Giacopazzi’s ice cream parlour for gelatos, coffees and treats, which was all very delicious and needed after our walk.

We saw several seals in the harbour and discovered that on weekends between 1-2pm you can feed them! There’s a man with a little hut selling seal food for £3-5, he helps you to hold a fishing pole with fish on the end and the seals were jumping up to eat it.

The kids didn’t want to have a go but loved watching other people feeding them!

 

We went back to the house for lunch and headed back out later, stopping off at the small amusement arcade by the beach, which honestly was the best I have ever been to!

Staff were so friendly, the kids won lots of little prizes on the 2p machines and I even won 2 cuddly toys on ‘the claw’ grabber (and it wasn’t a ‘win every time’ one!!) Completely made my day.
There is also a little bowling alley upstairs, which we didn’t do but is only £2 per person per game. There is a small playpark outside the amusements which the kids had a quick play on but it was getting dark and we were hungry so didn’t stay for long!

 

We then headed home, getting fish and chips along the way from the place next door to the ice cream parlour (same owners), which was really tasty. We tucked into our feast back at Merchant's House and enjoyed another evening in the comfy living room.

 

On Sunday we had another stroll along the harbour – which you can watch fishing boats coming in and out of at all hours, which was very entertaining and relaxing. We had some brunch at Rialto café on the High street, which was delicious and the place had a lovely, friendly vibe.

 

Eyemouth also has a leisure centre swimming pool, which we didn’t visit but would be a great activity and is a short walk from the house.

 

We had a lovely weekend in Eyemouth and enjoyed staying in our base of Merchant’s House. Prices are reasonable for such big accommodation and Eyemouth is a lovely place to spend some time in.

Booking and cost

The weekend we stayed cost £805 for two nights (Fri-Sun), which works out as £37 per person per night based on 11 people sharing. 

They also have a tower next door which sleeps 2 and would be perfect for a cosy getaway.

They are currently offering 10% off if you book direct through their website: https://gunsgreenhouse.org/

Merchant's House receives a big thumbs up from us.