Arbigland House was built in the 1750s in the Classical Adams-style by one William Craik. Visitors to the Gardens can book to tour the principal rooms of the house and learn something of the characters connected to it and the House’s American connections.
William Craik himself was a remarkable man. He was born in 1703 and died in 1798. During this long life, he introduced the Agricultural Revolution to Scotland, developing Arbigland from a poor tenanted estate operating barely above subsistence to the thriving beef and cereal estate it remains to this day.
William’s gardener was the father of John Paul Jones, a founder of the US Navy during the American War of Independence, he was later briefly an Admiral in the Imperial Russian Navy. A Museum on his life is next door to Arbigland House.
William’s illegitimate son, James Craik, was a close friend of, and physician to, George Washington. Indeed, the first US President died in his arms. Regrettably, from a British point of view, he foiled the plot to oust Washington as Commander-in Chief during the American War of Independence.
William’s daughter, Helen Craik, was a poet and proto-feminist novelist. She was a friend and admirer of Robert Burns who dined at Arbigland.
The son of William’s Minister, John Campbell, was press-ganged into the Royal Navy, rose to the rank of Vice Admiral, was the first Captain of HMS Victory and during the American War of Independence was the Governor-General of Newfoundland. Above all, he was a remarkable scientist, inventor and sponsor of the brass sextant and appointed by the Board of Longitude to test the lunar tables and chronometers submitted to them, thereby introducing to the Royal Navy (and the world) the system of navigation at sea that lasted over 200 years until the introduction of GPS.
William’s friend and extraordinarily wealthy neighbour, Richard Oswald (he made some of his money from the slave trade and slave plantations), represented the UK in the negotiations that ended the American War of Independence