HOUSES IN STRATHKINNESS

Although there are no buildings surviving in Strathkinness older than 1761,

and most of the older buildings date from no earlier than the 1800s, there

are several references in title deeds to ground feued before 1761 which mention

houses and other buildings already on the land being feued.

The first mention of a house, as yet discovered, is in a feu charter relating

to ‘all and whole the Town and Lands of Poffle of Strathkinness with houses,

biggings,yards, crofts, paths, pendicles and pertinents’ which was granted in

1754. A feu for ‘a house and yard and certain pieces of lands of the Poffle’

was granted in 1757. In 1775 General Melville acquired a ‘house, yeard and

pieces of ground in the Poffle with the south part of the barn and the little

stable at the east end of the houses of Robert Douglas...’

All that remains of the name ‘Poffle’ today are two semi-detached houses;

‘The Poffle’ and ‘The Other Poffle’. There was a row of buildings in front of

the remaining two houses, thought to have been built around 1800. All but

two of these buildings were demolished in the 1930s and one of those left

is in a dangerous condition.

The house known as ‘The Poffle’ has undergone several substantial

alterations. In the early 1900s it was a piggery and later a dairy. The byre

was converted into bedrooms and the central run-off trough can still be seen

under the floor of one of the bedrooms. The rooms are asymmetrical as the

109