Maxwell Place is a typical lowland Scottish freestone villa of the post-Adam period, built gradually between 1806 and 1824. Sir Walter Scott considered its style 'vulgar and modern'. If you're interested in Scott, literature and social history, take at look at Mythstuff. If you have an interest in Scottish history, I have a small transcript of a story for you - on the slave traffic between Aberdeen and the American colonies...
This may look imposing, but in Scotland it isn't very unusual; most town houses in Kelso dating from this period have a similar style, and are built of the same stone. The cost of a house like this in the Scottish Borders is around 70% of typical English regional prices (I said 50% until recently, but the arrival of the Scottish Parliament has really boosted prices and speeded up sales in the Borders in 1999).
Here's a recent view of the Borders seen from Carter Bar, the road from England into Scotland (A68) where the Border Stones mark the boundary on either side. Photograph by Ailsa Kilpatrick. You can see why people like to live here; 100,000 souls in 1,000 square miles. The area is popular for teleworking and relocation of small businesses which do not need to be geographically close to their customer base. It's now counted as a commuter area for Edinburgh and 20,000 new 'people' are planned for the Borders by 2016 with entire new villages being built.