As someone who thought she knew everything about old buildings, walls and stones in Glenrothes (in fact I wrote the book on the subject!), I was really surprised to hear that something had been discovered that I didn’t know about!
I saw some photos of this stone carving on the Our Glenrothes Facebook page, and headed out a few days later to take some photos of my own. It’s at a site that is now the Auchmuty Learning Centre, but used to be the John Fergus School.
I couldn’t really come up with any ideas of what it might represent, and where it would have come from, but luckily the council’s planning and archaeology departments were able to work out that on the right is an eagle’s tail, and that it is part of a plaque commemorating the 1723 marriage of Roger Aytoun of Inchdairnie (just down the road) and Euphemia Ramsay of Whitehill. The plaque combines the arms of the two families.
It’s thought the plaque may have come from Inchdairnie House itself, built in 1823, the burnt-out shell of which was being demolished at about the time that the development corporation started building this area of Glenrothes.
Perhaps the builders who put it in as part of the wall are still out there. They probably thought it would be a nice finishing touch to the wall, but unfortunately it’s been hidden behind bushes so it’s only now that it’s been rediscovered!
And now I've heard that there is another carving from Inchdairnie at St Paul's Primary School, so I'll have to have a look at that too. Perhaps the other schools built in the same area around the same time also have carvings!
And now I've heard that there is another carving from Inchdairnie at St Paul's Primary School, so I'll have to have a look at that too. Perhaps the other schools built in the same area around the same time also have carvings!
St Paul's had inchdarnie cost of arms on a wall inside the school grounds I am the janitor I have an old drawing of the history of it
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