Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 17 on 29/11/2004.

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Reminder of a golden age

Charles Douglas visits the lavish Paxton House in Berwickshire

The latter part of the 18th century was a golden age for many people living in the south of Scotland.

Money for some was plentiful, and there were those prepared to spend it. This period saw the building of Edinburgh’s glorious New Town, and a number of families of wealth and position (north and south), lavished their wealth on building spectacular new houses.

The Kinross-based Adam family, with their distinctive skills, began to design buildings which today comprise some of our most admired stately homes and palaces.

Patrick Home was a friend of John Adam, and was studying in Leipzig in 1751 when he received the news that his mother had been stabbed to death by the butler in her Berwickshire house while paying out the staff wages. The result of thistragic event was that at the age of 20, Patrick inherited a very sizable fortune and the ancient Home estate at Wedderburn, in Berwickshire.

Choosing not to return home immediately, the young man set off for Berlin where he was warmly welcomed into the Prussian court by a group of exiled Jacobites. It was here that he met and fell in love with Charlotte de Brandt, a natural daughter of Frederick the Great.

Their betrothal was not opposed, but the conditions were that Patrick must first move his fortune to Prussia, and be prepared to take up a commission in the Prussian Guards.

These terms were quite unacceptable to him, and the young man returned to Scotland heartbroken but determined, declaring to Charlotte that he would .....

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By Charles Douglas

Section : Historic Houses

Page number : 14