Broughton House is an 18th-century

town house A townhouse, townhome, town house, or town home, is a type of terraced housing. A modern townhouse is often one with a small footprint on multiple floors. In a different British usage, the term originally referred to any type of city residen ...

standing on the High Street of

Kirkcudbright Kirkcudbright ( ; ) is a town at the mouth of the River Dee, Galloway, River Dee in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, southwest of Castle Douglas and Dalbeattie. A former royal burgh, it is the traditional county town of Kirkcudbrightshire. His ...

, Scotland. It was the home of Scots

impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

artist E. A. Hornel between 1901 and his death in 1933. During this time Hornel remodelled the house and created the Japanese-influenced gardens. Since 1997 it has been in the care of the

National Trust for Scotland The National Trust for Scotland () is a Scottish Building preservation and conservation trusts in the UK, conservation organisation. It is the largest membership organisation in Scotland and describes itself as "the charity that cares for, sha ...

, and is maintained as "a living museum of Hornel’s life and work". The house is a category A

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...

, and the gardens are included on the

Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes in Scotland The ''Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes in Scotland'' is a listing of gardens and designed landscapes of national artistic and/or historical significance, in Scotland. The Inventory was originally compiled in 1987, although it is a cont ...

History

The main building was constructed in 1734 as two houses, at no.10 and no.12 High Street. In 1740 they were both purchased by Alexander Murray of Broughton, in Wigtownshire, Provost of Kirkcudbright and MP, who had them remodelled as one. The Murray family sold it in 1756, after which it had various owners, including the 5th Earl of Selkirk.

Edward Atkinson Hornel Edward Atkinson Hornel (17 July 1864 – 30 June 1933) was a Scottish painter of landscapes, flowers, and foliage, with children. He was a cousin of James Hornell. His contemporaries in the Glasgow Boys called him Ned Hornel. Biography Hornel w ...

(1864–1933) was brought up in Kirkcudbright, and as an artist was associated with the

Glasgow Boys The Glasgow School was a circle of influential artists and designers that began to coalesce in Glasgow, Scotland in the 1870s, and flourished from the 1890s to around 1910. Representative groups included The Four (also known as the Spook Schoo ...

. In the 1890s he travelled to Japan, spending over a year making a series of around 30 paintings that were exhibited in Glasgow on his return in 1895. The proceeds from the sale of these paintings allowed him to spend £650 on buying Broughton House in 1901. Hornel lived at Broughton House with his sister Elizabeth ('Tizzy'), for the rest of his life. He commissioned his friend, the Glasgow architect

John Keppie John Keppie (4 August 1862 – 28 April 1945) was a Glasgow architect and artist. From an early age he was a close friend of Edward Atkinson Hornel and would often bring in New Year with him in Kirkcudbright. Within the architectural professio ...

, to add a studio to the house, and in 1910 Keppie designed the gallery. A successful artist, Hornel continued to travel in the Far East, and also collected rare books. After Hornel's death in 1933, his sister continued to live at Broughton House until her death in 1950, after which the property was managed by The Broughton House Trust before being transferred to the National Trust for Scotland. In his will, Hornel wished that his house should "be preserved as a public art gallery for the benefit of the people of

the Stewartry Kirkcudbrightshire ( ) or the County of Kirkcudbright or the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright is one of the historic counties of Scotland, covering an area in the south-west of the country. Until 1975, Kirkcudbrightshire was an administrative county ...

and visitors thereto".

House and gardens

The National Trust for Scotland maintain the house and its contents as a museum of Hornel's life and work. Within the house is a range of period furniture as well as artworks by Hornel and his contemporaries. The house also contains a large reference library of some 15,000 books collected by Hornel, including a 2,500-volume collection of works by or about

Robert Burns Robert Burns (25 January 1759 – 21 July 1796), also known familiarly as Rabbie Burns, was a Scottish poet and lyricist. He is widely regarded as the List of national poets, national poet of Scotland and is celebrated worldwide. He is the be ...

, one of the largest such collections in the world. The library also holds Hornel's personal archive of newspaper clippings, letters, and other material. The studio is maintained as it would have looked when the artist was at work. In the gallery is a frieze designed to imitate the

Elgin Marbles The Elgin Marbles ( ) are a collection of Ancient Greek sculptures from the Parthenon and other structures from the Acropolis of Athens, removed from Ottoman Greece in the early 19th century and shipped to Britain by agents of Thomas Bruce, 7 ...

from the

Parthenon The Parthenon (; ; ) is a former Ancient Greek temple, temple on the Acropolis of Athens, Athenian Acropolis, Greece, that was dedicated to the Greek gods, goddess Athena. Its decorative sculptures are considered some of the high points of c ...

. The gardens, which back onto the River Dee, were laid out by Hornel and his sister and cover an area of around . The Japanese garden includes a rockery and a pond with stepping stones, while closer to the river a series of beds are divided by

box A box (plural: boxes) is a container with rigid sides used for the storage or transportation of its contents. Most boxes have flat, parallel, rectangular sides (typically rectangular prisms). Boxes can be very small (like a matchbox) or v ...

hedging. A number of 17th-century and 18th-century sundials are sited in the garden, as well as late 17th-century carved stone gate posts.

References

External links

{{Authority control Historic house museums in Dumfries and Galloway National Trust for Scotland properties Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes Gardens in Dumfries and Galloway Houses in Dumfries and Galloway Art museums and galleries in Dumfries and Galloway Category A listed buildings in Dumfries and Galloway Kirkcudbright