Barret painted for the Duke of Buccleuch from about 1768 to 1771. These were probably for Dalkeith Palace. Barret exhibited "Part of Melrose Abbey by Moonlight" at the Royal Academy in 1769, which is now at Drumlanrig Castle. Ellis Waterhouse notes seven views of Dalkeith Park by Barret in the Buccleuch collection at Bowhill, Selkirk. These, Waterhouse remarks, "are his most memorable surviving works. They were a conscious attempt at providing a native British type of landscape composition in opposition to Richard Wilson's Italianising patterns".