Field Visit
Date 18 August 1927
Event ID 1098962
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1098962
Kilconquhar House.
The southern corner of Kilconquhar House is a late 16th century building, but it is so hemmed in by modern extensions that only on the west is there a clear view of the older part from ground to roof. The upper portion of it near the re-entrant angle is, however, visible above the modern buildings in the stable court. The old house has been entirely modernised internally, and it has also been considerably altered externally. It has five storeys. The plan is L-shaped, the main block running north-west and south-east, while the wing extends north-east in alignment with the southern wall, thus leaving the re-entrant angle open to the north. On the south is a stair-tower of the 18th century, which must occupy very much the same site as the original staircase, since an original turret-stair, which is corbelled out in the south-east re-entrant angle, gives access from the fourth floor to its roof. Towards the wall-head the three angles of the main block expand into squat turrets containing ‘studies’, while the eastern angles of the wing are similarly provided with smaller turrets. The older masonry is of rubble but that of the turrets is ashlar, and except in the turrets the windows have all been renewed. The upper storey of the wing is set forward on a string-course which is in alignment with the upper member of the wing turrets. The chimney-stalks, the cornice, and the balustrade of the stair tower are modern.
HISTORICAL NOTE. At the date of the original building the lands of Kilconquhar belonged to Sir John Bellenden or Ballenden, Lord Justice-Clerk in 1547, who also acquired the baronies of Broughton and Woodhouselee in Midlothian. He left Kilconquhar to the eldest son of his third marriage, who was. succeeded by his uncle Adam Bellenden, bishop of Dunblane. On the suppression of the bishops in 1640 Adam Bellenden sold the lands to Sir John Carstairs (1).
RCAHMS 1933, 18 August 1927.
(1) Staggering State of the Scots Statesmen, by Sir John Scot of Scotstarvit. Cf. Inventory of Monuments in Midlothian, No. 101.
