Publication Account
Date 1987
Event ID 1016857
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Publication Account
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1016857
Kinross House is one of the most important houses in Scotland as it is the finest and best preserved example of a group of houses designed by Sir William Bruce according to Palladian principles.
Bruce bought Kinross Estate in 1675 and had the house built for his own use. From 1675 until the house was completed in 1693 he occupied Loch Leven Castle (no. 50). The house was planned on an axis drawn between the tower of Loch Leven Castle and the Tolbooth Steeple ofKinross, the house being sited about half-way between these features. Bruce utilised a 'double-pile' plan similar to that used by Sir Roger Pratt at Coleshill, England, but combined this with massing and detailing which is obviously French in origin. The exterior of the house is expressed as a two-storey structure over a semi-basement There is an attic storey suppressed in external appearance by locating the windows above the cornice and below the steeply pitched roof Similarly there are mezzanine floors at each end of the building providing servants' rooms, lit from the gables.
The interior decoration is in the Anglo-Dutch style that Bruce had introduced into Scotland, but shortage offunds prevented the fmishing of the upper floor to the same standard as that of the lower. Externally this shortage is not evident and a well-integrated series of forecourts, gardens and policies demonstrates Bruce's talent for formal planning on a grand scale.
Bruce's other houses in Tayside and Fife have fared badly, most being demolished or destroyed by fire. Only his former house of Balcaskie near Anstruther (NO 524035) has survived intact but this was a conversion from a former tower-house to an approximately symmetrical house. The formal garden at Balcaskie is a worthy forerunner to the gardens at Kinross.
Information from ‘Exploring Scotland’s Heritage: Fife and Tayside’, (1987).
