He had no direct heirs and the property went to Robert Adamson who

had formerly lived in St. Andrews but was later resident in Cupar. He left

the property to his wife’s neice, Mrs. Margaret Nairne Wilkie who continued to

let the houses. She moved to London and sold off part of the property she

had inherited for £136 in 1867 to Robert Forgan, golf club maker of St.

Andrews. The property she sold was two houses which were separated from

the rest of the property and built at right angles to the others, at the inter-

section of Sunnyside and Church Road, now made into one house called

‘Newton Lea’.

The remaining three houses were sold by Mrs. Wilkiers heirs. When the

property was put up for sale in 1913, at the upset price of £120 there were no

offers. It was bought later that year at the reduced upset price of £100 by

Mr. William McKendrick, a joiner from Dundee, who had previously bought

a nearby house at what is now 20 Church Road, and whose wife ‘belonged the

village’. Her nephew, James Peattie, was living in one of the houses her

husband bought from Mrs. Nairn’s heirs. Mrs. McKendrick had no children

and when she died in 1934 her neice in St. Andrews, Mrs. Elizabeth Brace,

inherited the houses which she sold the following year for £150. Mrs

Catherine Dennison from St. Andrews who bought them, let them as separate

houses until 1946 when she decided to sell the property in two lots. One

lot, consisting of two houses, was sold for £150 to Mr. James Duncan who was

living in one of the houses. The other lot consisting of a larger house was

sold far £100 to Mr. James Peattie, paperworker, who had been living in the

house for over thirty years. Many people living in Strathkinness remember the

Peatties; one lady remembers there being two brass double beds in each room.

Mr. Peattie died in 1947 and his daughter Mrs. Jean Peattie Gray inherited

his house.

In 1959 Mr. James Duncan, lorry driver’s mate, son of Mr. James Duncan

who had bought one part of the property in 1946 died intestate. According

to neighbours of the Duncans, his widow had a roup, reputedly the last to

have been held in Strathkinness, at which she sold all her husband’s belongings

before she could be assessed for tax. Mrs. Duncan’s right to inherit the pro-

perty was challenged in the Sheriff Court, but she was found to be ‘absolutely

and exlusively entitled to her husband’s estate’.

In March 1963 Mrs. Duncan sold her property for £100 to Miss Anne

Crawford from Edinburgh. In May of the same year Mrs. Gray sold her part

of the property to Miss Crawford for £300. The houses which up to this time,

whether owned by one or more persons, had always been rented out separately.

In 1963 they came together as one house and the ‘making of the village’

which Andrew Thom had said earlier would be the result of a proper water and

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