Paxton House, Berwickshire

Paxton House is a historic house at Paxton, Berwickshire, in the Scottish Borders, a few miles south-west of Berwick-upon-Tweed, overlooking the River Tweed.

Paxton House

It is a country house built for Patrick Home of Billie in an unsuccessful attempt to woo a Prussian 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, as well as furniture by Thomas Chippendale. The East Wing was added in 1812-13 by architect Robert Reid to house the library and picture gallery.[1]

Other inhabitants were Alexander Home and his son George Home WS FRSE (of Wedderburn and Paxton).[2]

In 1852 the wife of David Milne inherited the house and he renamed himself David Milne-Home.

Formerly the seat of the Home of 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 socialist 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 the National Galleries of Scotland.

Inside the halls of the Paxton House lies a gallery. In the year 1780, Patrick Home of Wedderburn returned from his eight-year-long Grand Tour with an extensive collection of British and European paintings. Unfortunately, he died even before the paintings were unpacked. Later on, Miss Jean Home, who was to inherit the house and the paintings, hired or 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 left specifically to house a collection of paintings.

The Paxton Trust in association with The National Galleries of Scotland have carefully restored the Gallery to its original colour scheme, and although Patrick Home's pictures are now dispersed, an important collection from the National Gallery has been hung in their place in the 19th-century manner.

See also

Wedderburn Castle.

References
  1. "Robert Reid". www.scottish-places.info/. Retrieved 1 February 2015.
  2. Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002 (PDF). The Royal Society of Edinburgh. July 2006. ISBN 0 902 198 84 X.

Borders and Berwick, by Charles A Strang, Rutland Press, 1994, p. 54, ISBN 1-873190-10-7

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