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Dysart, Panhall, 1 Pan Ha', Bay House
House (16th Century)
Site Name Dysart, Panhall, 1 Pan Ha', Bay House
Classification House (16th Century)
Alternative Name(s) Bay Horse Inn; The Shore
Canmore ID 53989
Site Number NT39SW 18
NGR NT 30335 92924
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/53989
- Council Fife
- Parish Kirkcaldy And Dysart
- Former Region Fife
- Former District Kirkcaldy
- Former County Fife
NT39SW 18 39335 92924
Compact two-storeyed domestic building dated 1583. Two painted ceilings and mural panels formerly associated with first-floor apartments. Restored 1969-70.
Information from RCAHMS (National Monuments of Scotland Report 1966-71, 5, pl. 6).
NT39SW 18 39335 92924
NT39SW 70 Dysart, The Shore
Field Visit (28 May 1925)
225. Houses in Dysart.
This little seaport contains a number of houses of the late 16th and the 17th century (Fig. 254). Pan tiled and harled, colour-washed or painted, they give a distinctive note to the town. Many have been altered and are now featureless, but others retain something of their original character, the following being of particular interest.
(1) [NT39SW 18] On the foreshore between St. Serf's tower and the sea, is a very picturesque harled tenement covered with a pan tiled roof (Fig. 254). It forms the front of a small court, the rear of which is a structure of the warehouse type. The entrance to the court is boldly moulded and bears on the lintel: MY HOIP IS IN THE LORD 1583. There has been an inner court, probably a stable court, behind the warehouse, and the entrance to it is an ashlar archway of 17th-century date. The front portion is an unpretentious dwelling, two storeys and a garret in height, but its crowstepped gables and heavy chimney-stalks, set at either end and corbelled out on the seaward wall, give it a character of its own. The skewputs are original and bear on north-east and south-west a male head, with moustache and beard, covered with a close bonnet and wearing a ruff; on south-east a female head with ode, wimple, and ruff. The rooms on the upper floor have been panelled and lined with pine in the 17th-century mode.
(2) [NT39SW 19] A small L-planned house, 100 yards east of St. Serf's Tower, has harled walls, slated roof, and crow-stepped gables with some good corbelling on the north gable beneath a stalk. Above a door on that face there has been inserted a panel containing a shield bearing three fleurs-de-lis and the date 1582.
(3) [NT39SW 16] "The Towers", East Port, is a tall harled house comprising a main block and wing, the latter projecting eastward to the street and containing the entrance. A panel above the entrance is initialled, apparently, C.R and RL. and dated 1589 (Fig. 257 [SC 1110374]).
(4) [NT39SW 124] Above the entrance to a modern house in Main Street is a pediment with side scrolls inscribed, GIF . THANKIS . WNTO . THE . LORD. The scrolls converge to a fleur-de-lis finial and enclose a square-petalled flower above a hammer, with tongs below; beneath the tongs is a fleur-de-lis flanked by the initials I.W. and I.K. above the date 1585.
TOLBOOTH. [NT39SW 4] Contemporary with the above is the tower of the Tolbooth (Fig. 255 [SC 1110376]) dating, as a panel on the front testifies, from 1576. The tower is roughly square, with a stair-turret projecting from the north-east angle and has a forestair built against the south side. The forestair is an addition and on the parapet is a panel with a shield bearing a palm tree; below the shield is the date 1617. The upper part of the tower has been reconstructed in the 18th century and provided with an ashlar bell-chamber, covered with an ogival roof in stone.
RCAHMS 1933, visited 28 May 1925.
Photographic Survey (October 1964 - November 1964)
Photographic survey of buildings in Dysart by the Scottish National Buildings Record/Ministry of Work in October and November 1964.
Publication Account (1987)
The Bay Horse Inn was famous in the 19th century as a centre for ship sales for the east coast of Scotland. It is not certain when this activity started or when the building became an inn but advertisement for the ship sales appeared in the Dundee Advertiser from its inception in the early years of the 19th century.
The property was purchased by the National Trust for Scotland as part of its Little Houses Scheme and they commenced alterations. Ceilings with traces of painted decoration were found after the roof had been removed. The ceilings were dismantled and a survey of the property was organised by RCAHMS in 1969.
The building comprises two separate parallel blocks on either side of a courtyard. The south block facing the shore is a two-storey, three-bay structure. Each of the ground-floor apartments had direct access to the courtyard and was also inter-connected.
Although the building has been altered internally and is not open to the public, a description of the interior may help in understanding the external expression. The east room on the ground floor contained a former kitchen fireplace. On the upper floor the end rooms had attics. The central room was open to the collars. This room was entered from a gallery at the top of the forestair. There was an exceptionally large fIreplace flanked by windows in the south wall. This was accommodated in a chimney corbelled from the face of the building.
The painted ceilings were found in the end apartments and were of slightly different dates. Boarded linings and ceilings were carried up into the roofspace of the central room. One of the ceilings had two sets of initials which helped identify this building as the house occupied by Patrick Sinclair, son of Henry, 5th Lord Sinclair, in 1585. At that time the house was described as 'new biggit'. The date over the doorway was 1583 confirming that the house had been recently built
The Pan Ha' area contains some fme 18th century houses, many restored as part of the NTS Little Houses Scheme. These are linked by 19th and 20th century buildings to create an attractive environment.
Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Fife and Tayside’, (1987).
