page_title: Craigenputtock
section_title: James Paterson on Craigenputtock
hierarchical_section_title: Craigenputtock / James Paterson on Craigenputtock
caption_attribution_description: English: A sketch of the Craigenputtock moor with the house in the distance by James Paterson when he was staying there in 1882.
context_page_description: Craigenputtock is the craig/whinstone hill of the puttocks. It is the 800-acre upland farming estate in the civil parish of Dunscore in Dumfriesshire, within the District Council Region of Dumfries and Galloway.
  It comprises the principal residence – a two-storey, four bedroomed Georgian Country House, two cottages and a farmstead, 315 acres of moorland hill rising to 1,000 ft above sea level, 350 acres of inbye ground of which 40 acres is arable/ploughable and 135 acres of woodland/forestry. It was once the residence of the well-known writer Thomas Carlyle, who wrote many famous works there.
  It was the property for generations of the family Welsh, and eventually that of their heiress, Jane Baillie Welsh Carlyle, which the Carlyles made their dwelling-house in 1828, where they remained for seven years, and where Sartor Resartus was written. The property was bequeathed by Thomas Carlyle to the Edinburgh University on his death in 1881. It is now home to the Carter-Campbell family, and managed by the C.C.C.
context_section_description: The artist James Paterson (one of the "Glasgow Boys") stayed at Craigenputtock in 1882.  The following is his account and sketches of his stay:
  Fifty years have come and gone since this lonely moorland farmhouse was tenanted by Thomas Carlyle and his newly-wedded wife, Jane Welsh.  
  Very little changed is anything outward; quiet Craigenputtock was then, quiet it is still.  You hear the wind moaning among the trees, the leaves falling to the ground, a distant murmur of water, the bleat of some sheep on the uplands.  These are the sounds by night and by day; all else is silent.  In how many places, dear to recollection, has time with its changes wrought sad havoc!  Here it is not so. We can wander through the quiet fields and adjacent moor; the garden still yields its scanty stock of fruit and vegetables as of old; we may sit in the quondam drawing-room, look into the once snug study, and even invade the sanctuary of the kitchen, memorable as the scene of Mrs. Carlyle's culinary triumphs.  A spirit seems ever to hang upon one's steps, a presence more real than the actual occupants.  It is easy to imagine the then hale Carlyle, waling solitary out there on the darkest nights, wrestling with his soul for and answer to the questionings within him regarding the problems of life, while from the open window issues the sound of music; his wife is playing Scottish airs on the piano.  These walls listened to the talk of the brilliant Jeffrey; here, too, the young Emerson first met his life-long friend, whom he overtarried not many days.  Here Sartor Resartus was written, and the essays on Burns, on Scott, and others.  It seems an intrusion a stranger being here, even now, uninvited.  Very simply were the "curious impertinent" once baffled, but now the door stands open, and, though few indeed venture near, a visitors' book lies on the lobby table, where those who make a pilgrimage to the spot can register their names.  Is it not in some sense sad the Craigenputtock was willed away to Edinburgh University? Without doubt a most deserving object; but would not the trustees have been equally satisfied, indeed more so, with an income of similar value in Consols? and we should have a representative of its former inmates still there in place of aliens.  It was, however, done doubtless with no lack of thought.
  Let us now look to Carlyle's own impressions of Craigenputtock, how he looked forward to his eight years' stay there, and how after all that rendered it dear had vanished, he turned to its memories in his old age with fond recollection.  We make the following extracts, which speak for themselves, form the recently published life by Froude –
  “Craigenputtock, June 10 1828. – We have arrived at Craigenputtock and found much done, but still much to do… Had we come hither out of whim one might have sickened and grown melancholy over such an outlook; but we came only in search of food and raiment, and will not start at straws.  Away then with Unmuth und Verdruss! Man is born to trouble and toil as the sparks fly upwards…  Of the Craig o' Putta I cannot yet rightly speak till we have seen what adjustment matters will assume.  Hitherto, to say truth, all prospers as well as we could have hoped.  The house stands heightened and white with rough cast, a light hewn porch in front, and cans on the chimney heads; and within it all seems firm and sound.  During summer, as we calculate, it will dry and the smoke, we have reason to believe, is now pretty well subdued, so that on this side some satisfaction is to be looked for.”
  Two months later Carlyle again writes to his brother –
  “Here is a drawing room with Goethe's picture in it, and a piano, and the finest papering on the walls; and I write even now behind it, in my own little library, out of which truly I can see nothing but a barn-roof, tree tops, and empty hay-carts, and under it perhaps a stagnant midden, cock with hens, overfed or else dazed with wet and starvation; but within which I may see a clear fire (of peats and Sanquhar coals), with my desk and books, and every accoutrement I need i
caption: Craigenputtock with the house in the distance
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