Raith House

Raith House is a Palladian mansion designed by James Smith in 1694, with later expansions and interior remodelling. The original structure is a 2-storey building with a vaulted basement, comprising 7 bays beneath a piend-and-platform roof, crowned by a carved pediment and cupola. The pediment was carved by James Thomson and Alexander Baxter. The principal mason was Alexander Gavinlock, with Thomas Kyle as wright and William Rowan as overseer.

The exterior is built of random rubble, formerly harled, with rusticated quoins and ashlar margins. A band course and eaves cornice run across the façade. The building is detailed with ashlar margins and features a coped ashlar chimney stack.

The north elevation presents the principal front, with the original 7-bay block at its centre. Three slightly advanced centre bays lead to a projecting, flat-roofed single-storey porch of ashlar, added after 1895. This porch replaces an earlier Ionic portico of circa 1800 and features a pilastered doorway with flanking narrow lights and slightly recessed flanking windows with paired pilasters to their outer angles. Further windows appear on each return. The doorway contains a 2-leaf panelled timber door and plate glass fanlight. The 1st floor has 3 windows, above which rises the pediment with its tympanum decorated with a coat-of-arms flanked by scrolled cartouches. The flanking bays have 2 windows to each floor, with regular fenestration at basement level. Quadrant links flank the centre block, each with tripartite windows at ground floor and 2 windows at 1st floor level.

To the right stands a 7-bay pavilion added in 1785, with regular fenestration and slightly advanced outer bays. Two small traditional piended dormer windows appear to the left of centre. The left pavilion also displays symmetrical fenestration; its right return contains a basement-level door and window, with 2 windows above and a bipartite window breaking the eaves into a flat-roofed dormerhead.

The pavilions are constructed of coursed and roughly squared dark whinstone rubble with contrasting sandstone ashlar dressings. The western pavilion features full-height round-headed arches framing its outer bays.

The south elevation is plain with a panel at basement level dated 1694 bearing the monogram AM BD. The windows throughout are of timber sash-and-case construction with 6-, 12-pane and plate glass glazing patterns.

In 1785, James Playfair added 2-storey and attic pavilions with 5 bays each, linked by quadrant connections, and substantially remodelled the interior. A balcony, probably on the south elevation, was also added after 1895.

The interior is of fine classical design and is largely Playfair's work. The entrance hall retains a heavily moulded plaster ceiling. The principal rooms contain very smart marble chimneypieces. A library occupies the pavilion wing. The original 17th-century winding stair features a light wrought-iron balustrade worked with foliage and the coronetted initials of Alexander Melville and his wife Barbara Dundas; James Horne, the smith paid for making 'ye ryvell of ye open stair' in 1695, may have created this balustrade. Drawings record a top-lit central hall, either square or circular in cupola form, with 4 openings alternating with niches and columns.

Raith House was built for Alexander Melville, Lord Raith, and his wife Barbara Dundas. It was the first of the Fife lands held by the Melvilles, Earls of Leven and Melville. The house was acquired by Robert Ferguson in 1725, and subsequently altered and extended by his nephew and heir William, with whose descendants it has remained.

James Smith designed two other very similar houses: Newhailes and Strathleven House in Dunbartonshire. Sir William Bruce may also have been consulted on the design. The mason John Adam, probably the father of William Adam, was employed on fairly minor works. The cupola carries a weathervane with the initials AM, which may refer to Alexander Melville, though some sources associate it with Alexander McGill, who worked with James Smith.