Some of you may be very familiar with this location, but when we were thinking about where to put the Fife Quest cache this place cried out to us. From here you have great views over the Kingdom and it's only a short (but admittedly steep) walk to get such a panorama as your reward. Third Generation kindly offered to archive their cache up here to make room for this one, but they were very much involved in the hiding of this new one - which was just as well for they are the ones who gained permission to hide caches here in the first place.
I have pinched the information below from 3G's cache that was here!
Although the present National Trust building was erected in 1906 there has been a series of dwellings on or around this site for some two thousand years.
By 1696 the estate was known as Unthank and the laird at the time, John Wemyss of Unthank did what many lairds of his day were doing. He turned his back on a tower house designed primarily for defence (Scotstarvit Tower) and engaged an architect, possibly Sir William Bruce, to design a mansion house. This, with due modesty, he named Wemyss Hall and it stood where Hill of Tarvit stands today. During the following two centuries two service wings were added to the north or rear side of Wemyss Hall, one during the 1840s.
The Wemyss lairds were no angels indulging in the odd spot of vandalism, most notably the removal of Cupar’s market cross. This was pledged by an early 19th Century provost as a stake in a game he played – and lost – with Colonel Wemyss. The Colonel took the cross up to the top of Tarvit Hill, but a century later, under the guise of celebrating Queen Victoria’s Jubilee, the people of Cupar raised enough money to bring it back down again to its rightful place and to erect the present monument on Tarvit Hill in its stead.
In 1904 when Dundee financier and jute manufacturer Frederick Sharp was looking for somewhere to create a new home for his family he came across the perfect location nestling on a hillside above Cupar. Employing the acclaimed architect Robert Lorimer, he set about creating a new family home with all modern conveniences befitting his status and the house was completed in 1906.
While amassing his wealth Sharp also devoted lots of time to collecting art and antiques and Hill of Tarvit is unique in design having been built around the collection rather than the other way around. Each room in the house was specifically designed in a certain theme or style to match the furniture and paintings that would go inside resulting in an interesting and eclectic mansion that was still small enough to be an intimate and comfortable family home.
There was also no expense spared outside the house with spectacular gardens, a nine hole golf course, tennis court, croquet lawn and curling pond to entertain the family in their leisure time.
Frederick and his wife Beatrice had two children, Hugh born in 1897 and Elizabeth born 12 years later. Hugh was seemingly a confirmed bachelor but he became engaged in 1937 to Mabel Hogarth from a west of Scotland shipping family. However just two months later while travelling to see her he was killed in one of Scotland's worst rail disasters when the Dundee and Edinburgh trains heading for Glasgow collided at Castlecary.
This left Beatrice and unmarried Elizabeth living quietly at Hill of Tarvit until Mrs Sharp's death in 1946 followed just two years later by Elizabeth who died from cancer aged just 38. With no family remaining Elizabeth left the house and collection in the care of the National Trust for Scotland with the upstairs of the house used as a convalescence home by the Marie Cure Foundation for 30 years until a new hospice opened in Dundee.
If you look at the fields in front and to the east of the house you will note the re- construction of this Victorian golf course which can be played on with hickory golf clubs.
Park either at N 56°17.571 W 002°59.883 or in the National Trust car park at the side of the house (N56° 17.346 W 003° 00.016) but please note that you may be charged for this in summer and it has an honesty box in winter.
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