Kirkcaldy, 34-36 Kirk Wynd

Kirkcaldy Houses.

(1) 34 KIRK WYND. Into the wing of this house, towards the street, is inserted a pediment bearing a cartouche surmounted by the initials M.A. and M.L. with the date 1637. The cartouche is parted per pale and bears: dexter, a saltire between two mullets and a crescent in base, for Anderson; and, sinister, a bend, a boar's (?) head couped in sinister chief. The house containing the pediment is modernised.

(2) 227 HIGH STREET. This three-storeyed house is almost entirely modernised. but the entrance has a moulded door-piece dated 1672 on the pediment. On the first floor are two moulded plaster ceilings. The smaller one, which is still complete, has compartments formed by simple moulded ribs. The larger one, which now covers a living room and its adjoining passage and lavatory, all contrived within what has evidently been originally a single large apartment, has ribs modelled in relief with garlands of fruit and flowers, and includes a central panel with a head in relief labelled ALEXANDER. The living-room had been panelled in pine in the early 18th century, and one of the passage walls bears a short stretch of similar panelling.

(3) 165 HIGH STREET. This large four storeyed tenement appears to have been rebuilt in the 18th century and has since been modernised. A pediment, set between the two uppermost central windows, contains a shield dated 1680 and, in later characters, 1722.

(4) MALCOLM'S WYND. Facing the harbour at the corner of Malcolm's Wynd are two contiguous 17th-century houses. Both are built of harled rubble, and each presents a gable of three main storeys to the street. The more easterly has tabled skews with scrolled skew-puts. Two string-courses cross the gable, and there is a corbelled projection at the staircase beside the entrance, which opens from the wynd. One chamber contains traces of an enriched ceiling and a stone panel with the Royal Arms and the date 166(?)2. The western house is derelict. Its gable is crow-stepped and is offset on corbels at the level of the first floor.

(5) ARMORIAL STONE, 20 JAMES GROVE. During the demolition of old Dunnikeir House this stone was found covering a conduit and was then rebuilt for preservation into the top of the back gable at the address given. It was originally part of a pediment and exhibits a shield with a bordure cheeky, parted per pale and bearing: dexter, a chevron between three crosses patty, for Barclay of Touch; and sinister, a chevron between two mullets in chief and what may be a hound in base, but this coat cannot be identified. Above the shield are a mantling and helm, the latter wreathed and having for crest a hand and fore-arm (?). Over all is a label, but any motto this may have. borne is now entirely obliterated.

RCAHMS 1933, visited 1 and 2 June 1928; 5 December 1931.

Four buildings in the heart of the burgh give an insight into central Kirkcaldy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

34-36 Kirk Wynd (Andersoune's House) is a somewhat altered, probably partly early eighteenth-century dwelling house, although the date 1637 on the door lintel would suggest that sections of the house, at least, are earlier (see figure 14). Named after Matthew Anderson, a local meal dealer and maltster as well as a ruling elder in the parish church, the house is crow-stepped with a lean-to wing projecting onto the street.

17 Tolbooth Street is a pantiled, eighteenth-century dwelling comprising two storeys and an attic.

23/25 Tolbooth Street, its near neighbour, is a three-storeyed, rubble-built dwelling with moulded door frames bearing the date 1785.

219 High Street to 317 Kirk Wynd standing on the corner of High Street and Kirk Wynd is a derelict building with crow-stepped gables, the only surviving such dwelling on the High Street. It still reveals eighteenth-century features, in spite of its poor state (see figure 14).

All of these dwellings were in the traditional prime site of the medieval burgh: near the market centre and the market cross in the High Street. They are fair reflections of quality housing for important burgesses in the heart of the town in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Many of the buildings lining the High Street display a distinguished architectural character that developed in the commercial and banking centre in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, when Kirkcaldy was a prosperous manufacturing town.

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