An Italian jasper dish, 17th century

Lennel House, Coldstream, Scotland.

Lennel House was one of the last works of the Scottish architect John Paterson, who studied under Robert Adam and first came to prominence in the 1790s. The house was built around 1820 for the 10th Earl of Haddington, and Beatrix Potter’s journal contains fond entries that describe the house and the surrounding country lanes during her summer there in 1894. By the early twentieth century, the house was owned by the Liberal MP Major Walter Waring and Lady Clementine Waring, daughter of the 10th Marquess of Tweeddale. During her husband’s service in the First World War, she converted the house to a military hospital, and Siegfried Sassoon numbers among the many officers who convalesced there under her direction. She was later awarded a CBE in recognition of her tireless contribution to the war effort. Today the house operates as a residential care home for the elderly.