Pitcairn House is a ruined 17th century

laird Laird () is a Scottish word for minor lord (or landlord) and is a designation that applies to an owner of a large, long-established Scotland, Scottish estate. In the traditional Scottish order of precedence, a laird ranked below a Baronage of ...

's house, located in the modern Collydean residential area of

Glenrothes Glenrothes ( ; ; , ) is a town situated in the heart of Fife, in east-central Scotland. It had a population of 39,277 in the 2011 census, making it the third largest settlement in Fife and the 18th most populous locality in Scotland. Glenroth ...

, in

Fife Fife ( , ; ; ) is a council areas of Scotland, council area and lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area in Scotland. A peninsula, it is bordered by the Firth of Tay to the north, the North Sea to the east, the Firth of Forth to the s ...

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

. Pitcairn House was not, as is sometimes reported, built by the

Picts The Picts were a group of peoples in what is now Scotland north of the Firth of Forth, in the Scotland in the early Middle Ages, Early Middle Ages. Where they lived and details of their culture can be gleaned from early medieval texts and Pic ...

, a people whose culture disappeared from Scotland around the 10th century. The name Pitcairn does, however, have roots in the

Pictish language Pictish is an extinct Brittonic Celtic language spoken by the Picts, the people of eastern and northern Scotland from late antiquity to the Early Middle Ages. Virtually no direct attestations of Pictish remain, short of a limited number of geo ...

, combining the common prefix ''pit'', meaning a portion of land or farm, with the

Gaelic Gaelic (pronounced for Irish Gaelic and for Scots Gaelic) is an adjective that means "pertaining to the Gaels". It may refer to: Languages * Gaelic languages or Goidelic languages, a linguistic group that is one of the two branches of the Insul ...

''cairn''. The noble family named for the area - the (de) Pitcairnes, recorded as far back as Henry de Pitcairn in 1426 - built the house around 1650. The family produced several eminent figures, chief among them

Archibald Pitcairne Archibald Pitcairne or Pitcairn (25 December 165220 October 1713) was a Scotland, Scottish physician. He was a physician and poet who first studied law at Edinburgh and Paris graduating with an M.A. from Edinburgh in 1671. He turned hi ...

(1652-1713), physician, religious playwright, and occasional correspondent of

Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton () was an English polymath active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author. Newton was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment that followed ...

, who owned the house in the early 1700s.Reid, 2004, pp. 6–41. By 1793, statistical accounts of the region describe the house as a ruin. The ruins are approximately , with the east gable rising to . The rest of the building has collapsed to the foundations. It is thought that the building was up to three storeys high. The site was excavated by archaeologists in 1980, and subsequently designated a

Scheduled Ancient Monument In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change. The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage, visu ...

. A number of finds are now in the

Kirkcaldy Kirkcaldy ( ; ; ) is a town and former royal burgh in Fife, on the east coast of Scotland. It is about north of Edinburgh and south-southwest of Dundee. The town had a recorded population of 49,460 in 2011, making it Fife's second-largest s ...

Museum. A steading and cottages were once associated with the house, although these were demolished when the housing estate was built.

References

Bibliography

External links

Pitcairn 2000 History Tour
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National Monuments Record of Scotland The National Monuments Record of Scotland (NMRS) was the term used for the archive of the sites, monuments and buildings of Scotland's past maintained by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland. The Commission was ...

Site Reference NO20SE 1.0

{{coord, 56.2124, -3.1773, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Houses completed in the 17th century Country houses in Fife Former buildings and structures in Scotland Former country houses in Scotland Glenrothes 17th-century establishments in Scotland