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Field Visit
Date 26 May 1925
Event ID 1099000
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1099000
Raith House.
The mansion of Raith stands rather less than 1 ½ miles west of Kirkcaldy station on a plateau commanding the estuary of the Forth. It was built between 1692 and 1694 by Alexander, Lord Raith, treasurer-depute of Scotland (1) and eldest son of George, 1st Earl of Melville, and the work of that time is represented by the central portion of the present house, oblong on plan. The old house has been substantially altered, but the vaulting of the ground floor still remains, while other contemporary features of interest are the fine wrought-iron balustrade of the stair and the heavily moulded plaster ceiling of what was the entrance hall. The external treatment is simple, the walls being harled but the dressings left exposed. On the front the central part is slightly set forward and is surmounted by a pediment heavily carved. Beneath a baron's coronet on the iron balustrade just mentioned is a monogram of the letters A.M. and B.D., for Alexander Melville and his wife Barbara Dundas, which is repeated on a panel on the south wall of the house with the date 1694.
RCAHMS 1933, visited 26 May 1925.
(1) Sibbald's History of Fife, etc. (ed. 1803), p.315.
