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Summary

Description

1729. Good example of unusually large double chamber crowstepped lectern dovecote with low side entrances, stepped alighting ledge and remaining walls complete with nesting boxes from ground level. W wall collapsed and roofless. Overall dimensions approximately 9 x 5m. E wall of pink sandstone boulder rubble and ashlar quoin strips below alighting ledge with squared and snecked rubble and ashlar quoins above; N wall of boulder rubble. Moulded skewputt to SE and moulded stone plinth at NE (see Notes).

Statement of Special Interest

B Group with Moncreiffe House, Stables, Walled Garden and Ha-Ha, Dairy, Filter Bed and Water Tank, Gamekeeper's Cottage, Garden Cottage, West Lodge and Gate, and East Gate.

The dovecote at Moncreiffe is a fine example of a once prolific estate building type. It is an important and integral part of the estate buildings at Moncreiffe. It is located in heavily wooded ground to the west of Moncreiffe House but close to an early footpath which would have been part of the network of walks on Moncreiffe Hill. Dovecotes were often vernacular type buildings but some were designed to enhance picturesque landscapes. This example may have been raised, this would account for the change of stone above the alighting ledge, and 'improved' with ball finials, as earlier records mention the existence of these at the rear wall, and the evidence remains in moulded stone at the NE angle which may have been a plinth.

Pigeon farming was common throughout Scotland with legislation in 1503 encouraging the erecting of dovecotes. However, by 1617 increasing crop damage led to further legislation limiting the building of cotes to landowners with two miles of croplands to prevent damage to crops on neighbouring land. Earlier dovecotes had small openings as in the Moncreiffe example and the gable entrances are unusual.

Moncreiffe House dates from 1962, it replaces a house destroyed by fire in 1957.

List description revised 2009.

References

Bibliography

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