St Andrews, North Street, Dean's Court

Dean's Court.

This house, formerly known as the "Archdeacon's Inns or Manse" (1) stands at the south-east corner of North Street, opposite the western end of the Cathedral. It is a three-storeyed building of the late 16th century, with a vaulted ground-floor, and is L-shaped on plan. The main block has been extended westward in the same century or shortly after its close. There was evidently a newel-stair in the re-entrant angle, but this has been removed, while the house has otherwise been greatly modernised. The first-floor chamber in the wing was panelled in pine in the late18th century.

The re-entrant angle opens to a courtyard, which has been entered from the street through the small archway, now built up, beside the present entrance. The archway has at the head a moulded label from which two thin shafts with moulded caps rise to the string-course at the wall-head; between these shafts is an armorial panel set within vine-scrolled shafts which rest on corbels representing human heads. The shield is surmounted by a helm and mantling and apparently bears: Three piles with a crescent in base, a Douglas coat. Flanking the shield are the initials G.D., for the George Douglas who had helped Queen Mary to escape from Lochleven Castle and who afterwards lived here, an elder in the Parish Church (2). The archway may date from the 16th century, but is more probably of the 17th. The boundary wall in which it stands was apparently surmounted by a parapet-walk, reached from the small stair which rises within the wing of the house from the first-floor chamber. On the farther or southern side of the archway there has been a vaulted cellar of which only one wall remains, forming part of the boundary wall of the courtyard. Within the courtyard is a draw-well.

RCAHMS 1933, visited 17 July 1926.

(1) Hay Fleming's Handbook of St. Andrews, p. 57. (2) Ibid.

NO 5130 1671 A short programme of recording concentrated on the panelled first-floor chamber within the core element of the Dean’s Court complex. The structure is thought to date to the early years of the 16th century and is recorded as having been renovated in 1951.

Exposed floor joists were recorded and the sequence of construction identified. The earliest surviving timbers appear to date from the original construction of this part of the Dean’s Court complex. A recorded hearth site is contemporary with the earliest floor joist series.

The present plaster ceiling in the ground-floor chamber below dates to the later 19th/early 20th century and appears to be part of the same programme as the re-panelling of the two principal rooms, which in turn saw some recycling of (?original) panelling.This new ceiling was supported in part by the original joists.

Thereafter, the history of the floor is one of repair and consolidation, commencing with the additional series of joists and strutting, as part of an attempt to support the clearly sagging floor. This all occurred before the addition of electrical services,the earliest evidence for which used fittings of pre-WW2 type.

G Ewart 2000

Sponsor: St Andrew's University

Kirkdale Archaeology

Date Fieldwork Started: 28/02/2020

Compiled by: ScRAP

Location Notes: Following discussion with Dr Alison Sheridan, National Museums of Scotland, we consider the cup shaped depressions on the stone to be natural features. The illustrated report of the stone by Dr Sheridan is attached to this record.