Lucy Houston, who chairs the Star of Caledonia Trust, said it was exciting to see her husband’s dream to “give something back to the community” that had supported them during foot-and-mouth finally be realised.
“I’ve never lost the belief,” she said.
“I’ve cried a lot, I’ve got cross occasionally, but I’ve always believed in the project like Alasdair did and I was determined to see his vision through.
“We’re anticipating 200,000 visitors in our first year, and that will be new visitors to the area.
“Obviously we really hope that those visitors will then go into south-west Scotland, into the Borders and across into Cumbria and really help the Borderlands area.”