A rare place to rest

A modest farm steading has been stylishly transformed into the heart of a magical landscape and garden. John Goodall admires the sympathy and humour of the project

- John Goodall

Broadwoodside, East Lothian The home of Robert and Anna Dalrymple 

ORE stabit fortis arare placeto restat’ exhorts an inscription in English—the word divisions wittily bestowing on it the appearance of Latin—in the garden at Broadwoodside. It’s good advice. The gardens created here over the past 25 years by Anna and Robert Dalrymple are, indeed, a rare place to rest and have become justly celebrated in their own right, attracting a steady stream of visitors and articles. What remains less well known is the house at their heart, which is no less remarkable or delightful.

Broadwoodside is in origin a modest farm steading, formerly part of the Yester estate of the Tweeddale family, set in rolling agricultural land just outside the village of Gifford in East Lothian. The site was anciently occupied and the place name can certainly be traced in the documentary record at least as far back as the 16th century. It’s difficult, however, with the limited evidence available, to say anything about the early form of the steading, which today comprises small buildings of many different dates integrated around a central courtyard.

The earliest surviving structure that can be confidently identified here is a huge ziggurat of stone, the chimney stack of a so-called ingleneuk. The word literally means an ‘ingle’ or fireplace that incorporates ‘nooks’ or seating recesses for warmth within its structure. Ingleneuks are a feature of 17th- and 18th-century Scottish domestic architecture, although they are usually attached to much larger buildings. This example may have been used both to heat the principal living room of an attached house and also for cooking.