St Andrews, 4 South Street, Queen Mary's House, St Leonards School Library
House (16th Century), Library (20th Century)
Site Name St Andrews, 4 South Street, Queen Mary's House, St Leonards School Library
Classification House (16th Century), Library (20th Century)
Canmore ID 34290
Site Number NO51NW 12
NGR NO 51266 16634
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/34290
- Council Fife
- Parish St Andrews And St Leonards
- Former Region Fife
- Former District North East Fife
- Former County Fife
NO51NW 12.00 51266 16634
NO51NW 12.01 5128 1663 Plough-marks
(NO 5128 1663) Queen Mary's (NR)
OS 25" map (1914)
"Queen Mary's House is a three-storied tenement on the southern side of South Street...The main block and the west wing still remain, but they have been so much altered that few features of interest survive..."
The house was built originally in 1523, and considerably reconstructed in the 17th century. It is believed that Queen Mary lived in this house when she visited St Andrews, and that Charles II also did so from the 4th to the 6th July, 1650.
RCAHMS 1933
"Queen Mary's House" is as described and illustrated above. The N front is plain and unpretentious, and the building is in use as the St Leonard's School Library.
Visited by OS (JLD) 17 October 1956
Above confirmed.
Visited by OS (WDJ) 28 May 1964
NO51NW 12.00 51266 16634
ARCHITECT: Reginald Fairlie, 1927, restoration as library for St Leonard's School.
Field Visit (17 July 1926)
Queen Mary's House.
This is a three storeyed tenement on the southern side of South Street, being the second house west of the "Pends," to which the property originally extended. The back of the house is to the street, while the front, which has had a wing at each end, looks out to a garden on the south. The main block and the west wing still remain, but they have been so much altered that few features of interest survive, while the eastern wing is represented by the vaulted lower storey of "Priors gate," the otherwise modern house adjoining. Fig. 408 shows the surviving wing, with its little oriel, and the stair-tower, surmounted by a cap-house, in the western re-entrant angle.
It is usually stated that the house was built in 1523 by Hugh Scrymgeour, merchant in St. Andrews, and this statement may be correct so far as the house in its original state is concerned. But more than one building-period may be inferred from the plan, while the character of the architectural detail suggests a date not earlier than the last quarter of the 16th century.
The entrance from the street is a transe running through the main block and emerging in the eastern re-entrant angle. The house has been entered from the stair-tower, but the old entrance and stair have been removed and anew entrance, screened by an 18th-centuryporch, has been formed at first-floor level. On the ground floor in the main block there are three chambers west of the transe, the two eastern ones being vaulted while that to the west has also been vaulted originally. In the wing is a vaulted kitchen communicating with a two-storeyed lean-to building of the same period, which has been considerably rebuilt. The stair stops at the second floor, and the garret is reached by a turret-stair, which has, at the stair-head, a protective railing with oak balusters, for the most part renewed. The second-floor chamber of the wing is panelled in oak of about 1590 and there has been an oak ceiling in the little study in the oriel. Beside a projection containing the kitchen flue is a closet with aumbries on each side and a window looking south.
Evidence of the alterations which the house has undergone in the course of time appears in the building-up and subsequent reopening of windows and doors in the front and back walls. The upper part of the wing gable seems to have been rebuilt in the 17th century, when there was a good deal of reconstruction.
It is believed that Queen Mary lived in this house when she visited St. Andrews, and that Charles II also did so from the 4th to the 6th July 1650.
RCAHMS 1933, visited 17 July 1926.