High on a hill...

stands this mansionhouse called Hill of Tarvit. There has been some form of dwelling place on Tarvit Hill in Fife since an iron age homestead c500BC. In 1696 the original mansionhouse on this site was designed for John Wemyss of Unthank and was later renamed Wemyss Hall.

In 1904 Wemyss Hall and estate was bought by Frederick Bower Sharp whose family had made their money in the textile industry in Dundee. As well as inheriting his father's jute interests he also profited from the Victorian transport boom and was chairman of one of Dundee's earliest investment trusts, offering venture capital at high interest rates. Not short of a bob or two he commissioned Robert Lorimer to design and virtually rebuild the house which was renamed Hill of Tarvit.

Sir Robert Lorimer was the best known Scottish architect of the early twentieth century. He began practising as an architect in 1893 and gathered around him a group of highly talented artists and craftsmen, many of whom worked on Hill of Tarvit. he won praise for his restoration work on Earlshall in Fife which was followed by the commission for Hill of Tarvit in 1905. Five years after this he was knighted for his design for the Thistle Chapel in St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh although he perhaps is most famous for his Scottish National War Memorial in Edinburgh Castle.

If you can find it, the house is a fine example of loads of money well spent and is now owned by the National Trust for Scotland, so I own a piece of it too I suppose...