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bearing handsome vases, ornamented with swags of flowers and fruit. An open balustrade surmounts 
the two lodges, with obelisks at the angles and vases on the intermediate piers. In the gardens 
surrounding the house are a pair of monumental sundials, one of which is shown on Plate 118. 
KINROSS HOUSE, KINROSS-SHIRE. 
PLATES 81 and 82. 
NROSS HOUSE stands close to the shores of Loch Leven, within sight of 
the island castle for ever associated with the name of Mary, Queen of Scots. The 
house is encompassed by lawns and thickly wooded parks, so that it lies hidden 
amidst the surrounding landscape. The whole place, which has not been inhabited 
since the year 1819, has now a very desolate and ruinous aspect, which is the more to 
be regretted as the house is of a good Renaissance type, well worthy of preservation. 
Unfortunately the site is low and very liable to damp ; it was originally a marsh 
and has been under water on several occasions. 
In 1675 Sir William Bruce, the well known architect of Holyrood, purchased the estate from the 
Earl of Montrose, and ten years later began the erection of the house from his own designs. It was 
roofed in 1690, and in December of that year, he says, “the building is not far from finishing.” It is 
believed to have been built for James, Duke of York, afterwards King James II. 
Sir William Bruce was a son of Robert Bruce of Blairhall, and took an active interest in the 
restoration of Charles II., in consequence of which promotion followed rapidly, and he was knighted 
in 1668, and in 1681 made King’s Surveyor. He occupied Kinross House until the year 1700, when he 
gave it up to his son. 
On the walls of the office courts are two sundials, cut in 1686 by John Hamilton, mason. One 
James Anderson, a local mason, was responsible for some of the garden architecture, and “hewed the 
basses for the diall,” erected the gate pillars, and the summer-houses in the garden. Tobias Buchop, an 
architect and builder of Alloa, erected a “great gate of curious architecture” at the principal entrance 
from the town, from a timber model delivered to him by Sir William Bruce in 1684. Of this gate only 
two pillars remain, and these are somewhat fragmentary. 
The house and grounds occupy an oblong plot of land, being exactly a double square, 650 feet 
broad by 1,300 feet long. This space is almost divided in two parts by the house and wing walls 
separating the garden from the entrance forecourt. The principal entrance is on the west side, up the 
remains of an old avenue, shown in the plan on Plate 81. On either side of the entrance, or western front 
of the house, are small enclosed gardens with high walls, surmounted by a balustrade, and close to the 
house are the quaint little pavilions, with their ogee roofs, as shown on Plate 82. They have entrances 
from the forecourt, and overlook the small enclosed gardens at the back. The angles of the wall are 
marked by massive stone piers supporting vases, and the globe sundials before alluded to. The pleasure 
garden was on the east side of the house, overlooked by the two summer-houses built by Anderson, 
which, though roofless, are still standing. At the points marked c c on the plan are fine stone piers, 
about sixty feet apart, surmounted by handsome vases, and in the eastern boundary wall are the 
curious gates, shown on Plate 82, known as the “ Fish Gates,” with rusticated piers, fifteen feet high and 
spaced twenty feet apart, surmounted by boys riding on dolphins. 
L 
