Hill of Tarvit (also known as Wemyss Hall)

The following is from the Historic Environment Scotland Gardens and Designed Landscapes Inventory. For the most up-to-date Inventory entry, please visit the Historic Environment Scotland website:

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Location and Setting

Hill of Tarvit lies 1.5 miles (2.5km) south of the town of Cupar in North East Fife. The site is bordered by the A916 to the west and by minor and estate roads to the south and east. The Hill rises steeply behind the house to 211m north of the gardens. The mansion house was formerly known as Wemyss Hall and it is set above gently sloping parkland with fine views southwards across the valley of the Craigrothie Burn. From the top of the hill there are panoramic views and the interpretative display boards at the base of the old Cupar Market Cross direct the views to distant features. The policy walls and woodlands screen the designed landscape from view from the surrounding area but are themselves of scenic interest.

The house is set amid approximately 279 acres (113ha) of designed landscape, which extends northwards to the top of the Hill of Tarvit and which is enclosed by the roads to Cupar and Bridgend on the west and south sides. Documentary evidence of the development of the designed landscape is provided by the 1st & 2nd edition OS maps, which indicate that it has remained very similar in extent and structure since it was laid out in the early 19th century. The old Market Cross of Cupar was erected at the top of the Hill in 1817, where it forms a striking monument. There is an attractive doocot in the south-west of the park, which is now overgrown and hidden amongst woodland, but which at one time may have provided a significant feature in the view from the house.

Landscape Components

Architectural Features

Hill of Tarvit House is listed A; it is a 1696 house, possibly by Bruce, with Victorian service rear wings and with extensive alterations by Robert Lorimer in 1905-7. The south front has five bays flanked by projecting bowed wings, long sash windows and a sundial above the central window. The west front has an arcaded loggia forming the porch. The Terraced Garden and Walled Garden are included in the A listing; the fine wrought-iron gates in the north wall of the walled garden are by Thomas Haddon. The laundry, listed B, lies to the east of the house; it is early 20th century and all the interior equipment has been retained. The Doocot is early 19th century, circular, with a castellated parapet and it is listed B.

The Stables are late 18th/early 19th century, classical and are listed B. There are several estate cottages in the policies, including the single-storey stables lodge listed C(S). The old Cupar Market Cross was emplaced on the Hill of Tarvit in 1817. The wide terrace steps in the gardens are ornamented with stone lions, and there is an elaborate iron well- head on the upper terrace. There are several small pieces of ornamentation in the gardens, including the statue in the rose garden, the sundial and urns in the walled garden, and the seat made by Hew Lorimer in the terraced garden.

Parkland

The parkland extends on all sides around the gardens. The parks were originally planted with thick, curving shelterbelts, many individual parkland trees and several roundels. These clumps and several of the individual park trees had been reduced in number by the time of the 2nd edition OS map in c.1900. In the early 20th century a golf course was laid out in the parks to the south of the house; this area has now been returned to grazing and is leased to a neighbouring farmer. The parkland is very important to the views from the house and replacement planting of individual parkland trees is to be encouraged. The western half of the parkland is currently cropped. There are two main access drives, from the west and from the south, and a new lime avenue was planted on the west drive in the 1970s.

Woodland

The policy woodlands were planted for amenity and for shelter and they enclose the parklands. There are approximately 90 acres of mixed deciduous woodland with a few coniferous pockets. Their continued management for amenity will be important to the views from the house. The shelter woodland to the west of the walled garden was badly affected by the gales in 1953 and has been replanted with Thuja heterophylla. Consideration could be given to clearing a tract through the woodland clump in the south-west of the park to open up the view of the doocot.

The Gardens

The walled garden lies immediately to the north and west of the house; it is located on terraces on the south-facing slope of the hillside and has been laid out with lawns and gravel paths and planted up with herbaceous and shrub borders, including a shrub rose border and a heather border. The ornate wrought-iron gates in the north wall lead to a wide ride through the dense shelter planting, through which leads the path up to the top of the Hill of Tarvit.

Immediately to the north of the walled garden lies the shrubbery which was planted on either side of a path leading around the walled garden to the east of the house and along to the laundry building. Here Mr Hugh Sharp designed a small water garden, incorporating several cascades, to the north of the laundry. The whole of the shrubbery area had become very overgrown by the time of our visit but there are still some choice shrubs remaining within the overgrowth, including a fine Eucryphia glutinosa, a Parrotia and several Rhododendrons including R. yunnanense and R. vaseyi.

South of the house, Lorimer designed the layout of the terraced gardens; early photographs show the low terrace walls and neatly trimmed lawns surrounding the sunken rose garden. This rose garden remains in the north-west corner and is laid out with several rectangular rose beds amongst narrow paved paths around a central pond, now planted up as a flower bed. The most striking feature of the terraced gardens is the clipped hedges, which are thought not to have formed part of Lorimer's original design, but to have been added by Frederick Sharp. Clipped Irish yews stand like sentinels along either side of the wide staircase leading down from the hall to the lower terrace. This lower terrace is enclosed by high, clipped hedges forming a semi- circular enclosure above the ha-ha fence above the park. Huge yew buttresses line the north side of the lower terrace and the whole enclosed area is laid out with lawn, shortly to be made a croquet lawn. A tall archway in the hedge leads from the west side of the garden to the upper terrace. Beyond the area of formal garden enclosed by the hedges are planted a few taller, specimen trees on the south side of the west drive.

Walled Garden

There is a large kitchen garden to the east of the stables. It is walled on three sides and still retains part of the old range of glasshouses along the north wall. It has been let out as a market garden in the past and recently has been let for growing nursery stock, although at the time of our visit it was disused. The curling pond was put in along the open south side of the kitchen garden; it is now overgrown but could form an attractive ornamental feature.