Publication Account

Date 1995

Event ID 1019229

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Publication Account

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1019229

To the east of the town are two important buildings (seep 45).

339-343 High Street is a sixteenth-century dwelling of significance, currently undergoing restoration by the Scottish Historic Buildings Trust. A three-storeyed building with a floored roof-space, its front exterior has undergone little change, other than new windows and doors being inserted and older ones blocked up, although the shops on the frontage are a major disruption. Originally, an internal stone spiral staircase was sited at the front of the house; the ground floor probably contained a kitchen at the east end; the first storey housed a large central hall with a massive fireplace and a chamber at each end; the second floor was probably of similar design. The original decorations also indicate that this was a dwelling of substance. The soffits of the second floor joists and boards were adorned with tempera painted designs, and there were pictorial decorations on the plastered walls, two of which at least survive-a lion, and a ship in full sail. In keeping with its continuing importance, the interior was modernised, possibly in the 1670s, with the addition of wooden panelling on internal partitions, and lath-and-plaster ceilings and cornices, the first floor ceilings being embellished with deep covings and decorative bands, roses and putti. Later internal changes altered its character: the front stair was taken down and a rear external staircase substituted; a pend was inserted right through the building; and there was a realignment of some rooms. External alterations created a west wing to the rear and added various outbuildings. This restoration project is a good example of the archaeological potential of historic standing buildings.

443-447 High Street (Sailors' Walk) may have originated as two dwellings. A characteristic seventeenth-century block, it probably incorporated an earlier building. Gables project to front and rear, the western gable being crow-stepped and corbelled out over the ground floor, while the roofs are pantiled, perhaps reflecting trading contacts with the Low Countries. In due course the building came to be divided into four dwellings. One of these, the East House, is approached by a turnpike staircase, and incorporates two interesting apartments. A rear room is finely panelled; another has a painted wooden ceiling, probably of early seventeenth-century origin, with arabesques and birds' and animals' heads on the boards, and biblical texts on the beams. An inscribed lintel over a fireplace bears the date 1676. A repositioned stone tablet bears the arms of Charles II. This was originally located on the east elevation.

Both of these buildings throw light on Kirkcaldy's past. Their position outside the East Port and near the harbour suggests that, as has been proved for 339-343 High Street, both dwellings were the homes of wealthy merchants or shipowners. Their sites offered ready access to the port and perhaps an oversight of the owners' ships. (Could it be that the ship painting in 339-343 High Street was an illustration of the owner's own ship?) It is unlikely that these were the only prestigious dwellings in this area of the town.

Development outwith the town port suggests that this suburb was becoming desirable in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries because of the increasing economic importance of Kirkcaldy's harbour, in spite of the hubbub and dirt associated with a port. Cartographic evidence, moreover, indicates that burgage plots were wider here than in the central core of the town, which would also have attracted, and might indicate, prestigious building. The later subdivision of both houses, certainly by the early nineteenth century, into a number of tenements is partly a reflection of the area becoming socially less desirable. Manufacturing premises moved in towards the harbour region, and the wealthier elements of society opted to move to quieter suburbs, further removed from the industrial core of Kirkcaldy.

Any refurbishment to these two standing buildings, the ground to the rear of the properties and the pend at 339-343 High Street, such as the insertion of new services, new floors or re-surfacing, would have archaeological implications. This might reveal, for example, successive floor levels associated with early phases of the buildings, or secondary structures attached to the rear of the properties. As both these buildings are situated outside the northern limit of the medieval burgh, any archaeological deposits that can be demonstrated to predate the construction of the standing building would also provide a date for the establishment of what may be a later suburb.

Information from ‘Historic Kirkcaldy: The Archaeological Implications of Development’ (1995).