341 High Street, Kirkcaldy

This is a 17th-century merchants house, incorporating fabric from the 16th century, with a late 18th-century turnpike stair. It stands within an irregular terrace on Kirkcaldy’s High Street and underwent restoration in 1995-6 by Simpson and Brown for the Historic Buildings Trust. The house is three storeys and has an attic, with a steep, pitched roof. It is constructed of painted ashlar, lime harl, and random rubble. A moulded corbel course sits above the first floor, and there’s a corbelled stack with cans to the rear.

The south elevation, facing the High Street, features a central pend entrance at ground level. To the left is a shop with an inset door and corniced fascia. A shop to the right has a similarly inset door, but with a large, unsympathetic fascia which abuts a small, blinded window at first floor level. Further windows are set to the outer right and, to the left, four windows are grouped as 1-3. The second floor has another blinded window to the right, with two windows to the right and three to the left, all close to the eaves. Small, timber catslide dormer windows are set into the steeply pitched roof to the right of centre, to the outer left, and in a three-part window off-centre to the left.

The north elevation is dominated by a central chimney breast, corbelled above the pend entrance and inset before reaching the wallhead stack. A window is set to the right at ground level, with another above at first floor. A two-storey lean-to rubble projection extends to the outer right, with two small windows close to the eaves at second floor and two tiny catslide dormer windows above. A turnpike stair hugs the left side of the stack, with a window on each floor; the ground floor window is blocked. A small window and door are present on the stair's return to the right. An advanced, two-storey and attic gabled wing extends to the outer left, with altered, asymmetrical fenestration incorporating brick.

The windows are timber sash and case, with 12- and 24-pane glazing patterns; the dormers have fixed timber frames with four panes. The roof is covered in grey slates. Coped ashlar and harled stacks have full complement of cans.

The interior retains deeply moulded cornices and tripartite divisions to the first and second floors, with principal apartments to the east and west. On the first floor west, plain, late 17th-century coved ceilings in two compartments divide the room, the dividing beam indicating the position of the 16th-century timber-framed frontage. The east apartment features timber panelling and a richer ceiling, also divided into two compartments by the 16th-century structure. The larger inner compartment has a richly modelled oval with flanking cherubs and thistle and rose angle mouldings; a concave diamond of enriched strapwork sits at the front of the ceiling. A 16th-century mural painting depicting a ship in full sail is found on the north wall. The second floor retains complete panelling, the best in the front west room, which has a deeply moulded overmantel panel in the Restoration style. In the attic, an angle to the north wall has a stone chimneypiece and a small inset range, and a further timber fireplace is also present.

Coped rubble boundary walls enclose the property. At the rear, facing east, are a pair of projecting rectangular bee boles with sloping lintels.