Paxton House is a historic house at Paxton,

Berwickshire Berwickshire (; ) is a historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area in south-eastern Scotland, on the English border. The county takes its name from Berwick-upon-Tweed, its original county town, which was part of Scotland at the ...

, in the

Scottish Borders The Scottish Borders is one of 32 council areas of Scotland. It is bordered by West Lothian, Edinburgh, Midlothian, and East Lothian to the north, the North Sea to the east, Dumfries and Galloway to the south-west, South Lanarkshire to the we ...

, a few miles south-west of

Berwick-upon-Tweed Berwick-upon-Tweed (), sometimes known as Berwick-on-Tweed or simply Berwick, is a town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, south of the Anglo-Scottish border, and the northernmost town in England. The 2011 United Kingdom census recor ...

, overlooking the

River Tweed The River Tweed, or Tweed Water, is a river long that flows east across the Border region in Scotland and northern England. Tweed cloth derives its name from its association with the River Tweed. The Tweed is one of the great salmon rivers ...

. It is a country house built for Patrick Home of Billie in an unsuccessful attempt to woo a

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

n heiress. Attributed to James Adam (possibly in concert with John Adam), it was built between 1758 and 1766, under the supervision of James Nisbet, with extensive interiors (c1773) by

Robert Adam Robert Adam (3 July 17283 March 1792) was a British neoclassical architect, interior designer and furniture designer. He was the son of William Adam (architect), William Adam (1689–1748), Scotland's foremost architect of the time, and train ...

, as well as furniture by

Thomas Chippendale Thomas Chippendale (June 1718 – 1779) was an English woodworker in London, designing furniture in the mid-Georgian, English Rococo, and Neoclassical styles. In 1754 he published a book of his designs in a trade catalogue titled ''The Gen ...

. The East Wing was added in 1812-13 by architect Robert Reid to house the library and picture gallery. Other inhabitants were Alexander Home and his son George Home (of Wedderburn and Paxton). In 1852 Jean Milne, the wife of David Milne, inherited the house and he renamed himself David Milne-Home. Formerly the seat of the Paxton family, who became Forman-Home, Milne-Home, and finally Home-Robertson as the direct male lines failed and the inheritance progressed through a female. In 1988, the last laird, John David Home Robertson, a Labour member of Parliament, placed the house and grounds into the Paxton House Historic Building Preservation Trust. It is now open to the public and is a Partner Gallery of National Galleries Scotland.

Paxton House Gallery

In 1780 Patrick Home of Wedderburn returned from his eight-year-long Grand Tour with an extensive collection of British and European paintings and died before the paintings were unpacked. Later on, Jean Home, who was to inherit the house and the paintings, employed the Master of Work to the Crown of Scotland, architect Robert Reid (1776–1856), to build what is now the East Wing of Paxton House to accommodate a library and a gallery. The gallery is now the only room housing a collection of paintings. The Paxton Trust in association with National Galleries Scotland have restored the Gallery to its original colour scheme. Patrick Home's pictures are now dispersed; a collection from the National Gallery has been hung in their place in the 19th-century manner.

References

''Borders and Berwick'', by Charles A Strang, Rutland Press, 1994, p. 54,

External links

Official site
{{Coord, 55, 45, 40.12, N, 2, 6, 35.93, W, type:landmark, display=title Country houses in the Scottish Borders Category A listed buildings in the Scottish Borders Neoclassical architecture in Scotland National Galleries Scotland Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes Art museums and galleries in Scotland Museums in the Scottish Borders Historic house museums in the Scottish Borders

Paxton House Gallery

See also

References

External links