Kirkcaldy, 3-9 Nether Street, Path House (Pathhead Medical Centre)

Dunnikeir House.

This tenement, also known as "the old manse", stands on the north side of Nether Street and is a large three-storeyed building dating from 1692. On plan it consists of a main block lying east and west, with awing projecting southwards to the street, in alignment with the west gable, and enclosing a tower for the turnpike in the re-entrant angle. A second and smaller wing projects northward from the centre of the north wall. The gables are skewed and have scrolled skew-puts. The windows have margins, back-set and chamfered. The uppermost windows are dormers with scrolled pediments. The eastern pediment on the south wall is dated 1692; the central pediment bears the initials E.O., for Euphan Orrock, and the western pediment I.W., for John Watson of Dunnikeir. The south wing has two dormers with pediments, the eastern pediment initialled E.O. and the western I.W., and these initials are repeated in monogram on the moulded door-piece of the entrance, which lies in the south wall of the main block. The house has been gutted and modernised internally, and the turnpike-stair has been removed.

SUNDIAL. - On the south-west angle of the south wing is a tabular sundial.

(1) See Mural Monument in Burntisland churchyard (No. 69 (I)).

RCAHMS 1933, visited 1 June 1928.

Dunnikier House or Path House, in Nether Street, was built by John Watson in 1692, but was soon 'sold to the Oswald family who had important connections with Kirkcaldy. An L-plan, three-storeyed, harled building, it has a number of interesting architectural features including scrolled skewputs at the base of the gables and a double wall sundial. The circular tower in the re-entrant angle was inserted in the late nineteenth century.

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