Search for Museums and Paintings

Auchinleck / United Kingdom

Field Marshal Sir Claude John Eyre Auchinleck, was a British Army commander during the Second World War. He was a career soldier who spent much of his military career in India, where he rose to become Commander-in-Chief of the Indian Army by early 1941. In July 1941 he was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Middle East Theatre, but after initial successes, the war in North Africa turned against the British, and he was relieved of the post in 1942 during the crucial Alamein campaign. In June 1943, he was once again appointed Commander-in-Chief, India, where his support through the organisation of supply, maintenance and training for William Slim's Fourteenth Army played an important role in its success. He served as Commander-in-Chief, India until the Partition in 1947, when he assumed the role of Supreme Commander of all British forces in India and Pakistan until late 1948.

Dumfries House

Auchinleck / United Kingdom

Dumfries House is a Palladian country house in Ayrshire, Scotland. It is located within a large estate, around two miles west of Cumnock. Noted for being one of the few such houses with much of its original 18th-century furniture still present, including specially commissioned Thomas Chippendale pieces, the house and estate is now owned by The Prince's Foundation, a charity which maintains it as a visitor attraction and hospitality and wedding venue. Both the house and the gardens are listed as significant aspects of Scottish heritage. The estate and an earlier house were originally called Lefnoreis or Lochnorris, owned by a branch of the Craufurds of Loudoun. The present house was built in the 1750s for William Dalrymple, 5th Earl of Dumfries, by John Adam and Robert Adam. Having been inherited by the 2nd Marquess of Bute in 1814, it remained in his family until 2007 when the 7th Marquess sold it to the nation for £45 million due to the cost of upkeep.Due to its significance and the risk of the furniture collection being distributed and auctioned, after three years of uncertainty, in 2007 the estate and its entire contents was purchased for £45m for the country by a consortium headed by Charles, Prince of Wales, including a £20m loan from the Prince's charitable trust. The intention was to renovate the estate to become self-sufficient, both to preserve it and regenerate the local economy. As well as donors and sponsorship, funding was also intended to come from constructing the nearby housing development of Knockroon, a planned community along the lines of the Prince's similar venture, Poundbury in Dorset. The house duly reopened in 2008, equipped for public tours. Since then various other parts of the estate have been reopened for various uses, to provide both education and employment, as well as funding the trust's running costs.