St Andrews, 71 South Street

Houses in St. Andrews.

In addition to those described in separate articles several other houses deserve to be recorded, although in each there has been a considerable amount of alteration.

SOUTH STREET. - (1) No.3 is a three-storeyed 17th-century house with harled walls, in which the windows, where original, are moulded with a heavy edge-roll.

(2) No. 40, three storeys and an attic in height, has windows chamfered or moulded. The gables have three bold corbel-stops to the street. A panel above a second floor window displays the arms and initials of Prior John Hepburn.

(3) No. 42 may date from the close of the 16th century but has been almost entirely rebuilt. A skew-put towards the street bears a shield charged with three crosses flory issuing out of as many crescents, for Monypenny of Pitmilly.

(4) South Court, which enters from South Street, dates apparently from the 17th century. On the first floor there is a finely panelled library.

(5) No. 46 has been largely rebuilt. It is three storeys in height; above a window in the first floor is a small heraldic panel: On a chevron an otter's head erased and in base a saltire, for Balfour of Mountquhanie. Below the shield are the initials A.B. The Renaissance portico bears in the pediment an oval cartouche, enclosing a saltire engrailed with a crescent between the upper arms.

(6) No. 71, which is vaulted on the ground floor, is apparently of the 17th century. In this house was a ceiling painted in tempera, two portions of which are preserved in the hall of St. Salvator's College, while another is in the National Museum of Antiquities. The joists of oak are 5 ½ by 3 inch scantlings, set at 2 feet 4 ½ inch centres. Only the boarding, which is of red pine 9 to 12 inches wide, is decorated, the motifs being executed in black, yellow, and red on a white ground. They comprise scroll-work, an oval cartouche with the initials E.A., and an owl on a perch with a tinted canopy above.

(7) THE ROUNDLE - This house, forming the north-east corner of South Street, dates from the later 16th or the 17th century. It is three-storeyed and has an angle stair-tower surmounted by a balustrade, said to have been composed of tomb-balusters removed from the churchyard. On the east gable is an armorial panel. The shield, apparently backed by a crook, bears: On a cross engrailed a crescent, two cross-crosslets fitchy in chief, for Haldenston, apparently the 15th-century prior of that name (cf. p.231). The stone must have been taken from some earlier building.

RCAHMS 1933, visited 24 June 1926.

NO51NW 235 51031 16663

NO 510 166 The gardens behind the Department of Medieval History were evaluated in October 1999 in advance of a proposed laboratory development for the Department of Psychology. Three trenches, each 2m square, were dug by hand in the W part of the garden. Deep deposits (over 1m) of medieval garden soil were found to underlie the existing turf and topsoil and a modern garden soil. Two pits with medieval pottery, a post-hole, and a clay surface, all of medieval date, were located in one trench. The edge of a stone and rubble-filled feature was found in another trench, and a robber trench for a 19th-century boundary wall in another. Finds include medieval and post-medieval pottery, animal bone, clay pipes, glass, tiles, shells and metalwork, including an iron blade. (SUAT SA40).

Sponsor: University of St Andrews.

D Perry 2000