Pictures reveal plans for renovation of Hugh MacDiarmid cottage and new centre for writers in residence

Now, Brownsbank Cottage, near Biggar, is set to be renovated after three years lying empty - and buildings created in the woodlands around it to enhance its literary offering.

The Brownsbank Trust, which manages the cottage, is set to launch a crowdfunding campaign to raise close to £1 million to revamp the building and create a centre to resurrect the writers in residence scheme, as well as a bothy for use by the local community and a visitor centre.

A feasibility study has been carried out by Konishi Gaffney Architects for the creation of the MacDiarmid Centre and the restoration of the historic cottage, where the couple lived from 1951 until his death in 1978. His wife Valda lived on there until her death in 1989.

The Trust also hopes to promote literary tourism as a result of the renovation, linking the site to others in locations such as Ellisland and Alloway, where Robert Burns lived and was born, as well as Little Sparta, the former home of Ian Hamilton Finlay and Peebles, where John Buchan was from.

The cottage was handed over to Biggar Museum in the early 1990s, including all items belonging to the MacDiarmid family, which are now in storage until after the renovation, amid fears that damp in the building could damage them. Brownsbank was home to writers in residence until 2012, including The Testament of Gideon Mack author James Robertson, who has credited his two-year stint at the cottage as having “changed my life”.

Denham MacDougall, who is on the board of the Brownbank Trust and has been involved with the project for more than a decade, said the new writers in residence building would allow the cottage to become a “shrine” to MacDiarmid.

He said: “What we want to do is house writers in residence in the new development and have the cottage as a sort of museum and shrine to MacDiarmid that people can come to. People will also be able to hold workshops and writing groups.”

“It’s a long project and there is still a lot of fundraising to do. The renovation of the cottage and restoring what is in it will be about £400,000 and the development will be more. Funding for this sort of thing is very tight, but you battle on. We have had some significant donations, but we’re going to go for a crowdfund to raise the rest.”

He added: “Literary tourism is very big business. We want to take a leaf out of the page of our Irish cousins, the WB Yeats, Seamus Heaney and Samuel Beckett industry is enormous. There is huge potential there.”

The project would see the creation of a visitor centre and a writer’s retreat which would see an author based there for up to two years. Meanwhile, a separate bothy, where members of the local community could visit to write would also be created, as well as short let accommodation to create income to fund the maintenance of the site.

Formed from dark timber and set behind the cottage, the MacDiarmid Centre will extend into the Scots pine forest areas surrounding the cottage, including the creation of a writer’s cabin, visitor accommodation and a woodland art walk.

Kieran Gaffney, director of Edinburgh-based Konishi Gaffney Architects, said: “We were commissioned in March to do a feasibility study to decide what they should do to make that place special and somewhere to visit.

“The cottage is A-listed and has its own plan, but they need other spaces where people can write and read about the literary past of Hugh MacDiarmid.”