Artistic impressions
A painter’s house could be a perfect canvas for a new owner
FOR most homeowners, the prospect of ‘painting the house’ is a thing of dread, only to be attempted on a Bank Holiday weekend atop a pair of wobbly steps. John McNairn, however, spent a lifetime capturing the essence of his Georgian family home in a series of dream-like paintings of its walled garden and wooded glade.
The Scots artist lived until he was 99, spending his final 40 years taking inspiration from Broomhill House and its extensive grounds near Selkirk.
‘Painting the house’ for him was something he would undertake with a palette – and he clearly achieved enormous satisfaction from the job.
As well as a fine legacy of oils and watercolours, McNairn’s garden ‘work’ is remembered today in a series of birthday and Christmas cards.
In an interview in 1989, he said of his inspiration: ‘Entering the walled garden for the first time was like exploring another world.
‘There was a mystery attached to it. The garden made me paint in a different manner.’
Even views away from Broomhill House are enough to warm the heart. You can make out the town of Selkirk about a mile away, its church spires visible down a buttercup meadow and through a bushy bank of trees.
These wonderful vistas come free of charge with Broomhill House, now on the market at offers over £695,000.
The property – originally a farmhouse – dates from around 1750 and was subsequently extended in the 1830s and 1920s. The current owners conducted a major refurbishment in 2010, the year after McNairn’s death.
This involved renewing the roof coverings, recoating external walls, rewiring, replumbing, the installation of a new oil-fired boiler and the installation of a Mark Wilkinson kitchen.
The result is a traditional Scottish country home, with all the benefits of a Georgian house matched to the exacting standards demanded for comfortable 21st Century living.
The breakfasting kitchen is a triumph of sensitive design, the assortment of wooden wall and floor units blending in seamlessly with the building’s heritage.
That same heritage is celebrated in the wonderfully preserved hallway, its lovely curved wooden banister leading upstairs. The cast iron radiator and intricate arch and ceiling decoration leave you in no doubt that this property has been around for centuries.
The period character of the house is further evident in the drawing room, with a distinctive rounded doorway in the corner. It leads into the music room, again topped off with those cast iron radiators.
There are three bedrooms, a child’s bedroom, two bathrooms and a shower room on the first floor. Two more bedrooms are to be found on the second floor, along with a WC and attic bedroom. The gardens at Broomhill House still show how they bewitched the artist McNairn. Among the range of outbuildings is a ‘gin gang’ or circular threshing mill, where the horse would walk round and round, operating the machine through a series of gears, drive shafts and belts.
The roundhouse gin gang is clearly visible in many of McNairn’s paintings, most notably in one watercolour where it is overshadowed by a forest of trees, painted blue.
It is now adapted as a store for logs, used in the house’s wood-burning stoves. In total, there are six acres of grounds.
John McNairn was not one of Scotland’s most celebrated artists. But he led a colourful life, travelling to Spain during the turbulent decade of the 1930s.
The website dedicated to his life says: ‘He saw the Surrealists’ 1933 Paris exhibition and recollects the disturbing effect Dali and Miro had on him. Consequently, many of McNairn’s paintings have an unsettling emptiness, accentuated by a slightly unreal perspective.’
In his garden at Broomhill House, however, the artist was never happier. Offers over £695,000 to Alex Inglis of CKD Galbraith. Tel 01573 224 244.