A Home with a History: the brilliantly biographical world of Anna and Robert Dalrymple

On a blustery day in winter, Robert Dalrymple is ladling spinach soup into bowls in the warm kitchen of Broadwoodside, the remodelled farm steading in the Scottish Lowlands that he and his wife Anna have made their home over the past 25 years. Walter the whippet is scuttling underfoot, while Anna takes bread rolls out of the oven.

The horizontal light at this time of year floods the kitchen, bathing its surfaces to pick out a wealth of textures and details of family lore: glazed tiles with baby footprints; tally marks counting the weeks of lockdowns; piles of china collected over a lifetime and a percussive arrangement of stainless-steel kitchen utensils hanging next to the Aga. This is the warmth of a family home, lived in and loved, battered and bettered by many hands and feet over years and decades. Broadwoodside is testament to the adage that a good home is neither styled nor curated, but comes to life through the daily, wholehearted participation of its inhabitants.

The story of how it came to be the Dalrymple’s home is a combination of cosmic serendipity and gumption. The couple were living nearby in East Lothian in the late 1990s when Anna happened to see a ‘for sale’ sign in a field at the foot of a track that led to a collection of then derelict farm buildings. “We weren’t even looking to move, let alone take on a gargantuan restoration,” laughs Robert as he paces through the courtyards. “But the very same week I had happened upon a book in Edinburgh that captured my imagination”. The book in question was ‘Living by Design’ by John Stefanidis, in which the designer documented his own restoration in the 1970s of a similar collection of farm buildings into his home. It became a lodestar for the Dalrymples. Robert gleefully points out the cues that inspired everything from spatial arrangements on plan, to the details of the bookcases in the library. The book had persuaded him to go along with Anna’s enthusiasm for the move.

Broadwoodside then comprised a series of farm buildings, originally belonging to the Tweeddale family as part of the Yester estate, with the oldest part dating back to the early 18th century. The Dalrymples called upon the services of Edinburgh-based husband-and-wife architects Nicholas and Limma Groves-Raines to help rationalise and restore the site into a habitable state. Having worked with the Dalrymples on three previous projects, the mutual trust and familiarity between client and architect made for a natural and intuitive collaboration. (Later the Groves-Raines would tell me that the Dalrymples have been their favourite clients; “They say ‘yes’ to the dream, and then we work out how to make it a reality.”)

The Groves-Raines introduced two new buildings to resolve the historic collection from crumbling chaos into a comfortable home: a corner pavilion with an ogee roof; and a gatehouse with a cupola that plugged a gap, turning the farm buildings into a courtyard. Such is the rigour and sensitivity of the Groves-Raines, both buildings meld into their neighbouring structures with a patchwork charm. The restoration and refurbishment of the derelict buildings provided the perfect canvas for bringing together the dwellings as a whole in a way that never feels forced nor contrived, but rather carefully and idiosyncratically crafted. Slate and pantile roofs vary in height, interspersed with dormer windows and chimneys. From the outside, Broadwoodside has an orchestral beauty; the whole arrangement is so much more than the sum of its parts.

Broadwoodside is known for its gardens, so it’s a surprise to hear the Dalrymples say they are reluctant gardeners: “I hate gardening, but I love planning,” Robert admits. “I imagined a generously planted garden with viewpoints, which would look good in every season.” And, 25 years into their lives at Broadwoodside, Robert and Anna have nurtured a garden that charms and delights, even in the dead of winter. It is so much more than good planting; more like a sequence of chapters, each containing its own stories and characters.

Character is the operative word here, and wry humour is writ large across the landscape. From William the African grey parrot’s mighty timber birdcage in the centre of the courtyard, out to the top corner of the garden where the family’s former canine pets are buried, marked with a sign that reads: “Going to the Dogs”. Layers of family life and times are embedded throughout the landscape. The gardens at Broadwoodside are a personal world, with great personality.

Back indoors, Anna describes the special capacity the buildings have for soaking up people. Broadwoodside was a haven for the couple and their four children variously during lockdowns, with partners, grandchildren and pets in tow. “It has a Tardis-like quality – there are nine bedrooms and plenty of space for people to spread out,” says Anna. “The enfilade of rooms on the ground floor allows us to be together or separate, with doors open or closed. It’s a lovely long corridor for children to slide up and down, though they learn pretty quickly that doing so in bare feet may result in splinters.”

Each of the ground-floor rooms has its own feeling: the spritely warmth of the family kitchen is accentuated by the gloss black darkness of the adjoining dining room; the double height living room feels both grand and cosy, filled with generous upholstered furniture and curious objects, its height softened by hanging Madagascan textiles draped over the oak beams. The library next door has a gentle, bookish quietude, in contrast to the nursery space at the end: “Where our children ended-up, and now theirs take over,” Robert says.

There is a familial, biographical richness in the layers of feeling and detail throughout Broadwoodside. You don’t need to know the stories to feel its warmth. “We did the majority of the decoration in a fast six-month creative surge at the beginning,” Robert says, “the rest has happened incrementally over 25 years.” Like all fine family homes, it has had a reflexive impact on its inhabitants; a place of comfort and sanctuary that gives back to all who feed into it. Around the cornice in the library, there’s a poem ‘The Bright Field’ by R.S. Thomas. “We always thought it was a detail that was totally lost on our children,” Robert says, “But three of them had it read at their weddings.”

Broadwoodside garden is open for charity on Sunday 22 June for Scotland’s Garden Scheme.

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See Robert Dalrymple’s design work