The earliest known written record mentioning the Pittarthie estate dates from the second half of the 14th century. At Scone, on the fifth of November 1375, King Robert II of Scotland granted William Strang and his men who dwelled in ‘Kynaldy’ and ‘Petardy’ the right to pasture their livestock on the King’s moor at Crail. The large number of Scottish white gritty ware sherds and the 13th-14th sword pommel which have been discovered at Pittarthie provides archaeological evidence which further attests to the site’s medieval occupation. It is assumed that the present tower house’s earliest foundations were constructed towards the end of the 16th century, however, the known documents that survive from this era of Pittarthie’s history present a very incomplete picture of this landscape’s development. A record from the second half of the 15th century suggests that at some point ‘Petarthy’ had been acquired by the church of St Andrews. It is unclear how long Pittarthie remained in the hands of the church, however, if the estate had not been disposed of by the Scottish Reformation in the 1560s, it is likely to have formed part of the episcopal lands and revenues which were dispossessed in Fife by King James VI of Scotland and redistributed to the king’s supporters. Two documents within the National Records of Scotland associate George Halliburton with Pittarthie during the 1580s and early 1590s. The close association, implied within these documents, between the archbishops of St Andrews and the Halliburtons, may have given the king reason to strip the Halliburtons of the estate shortly after 1590. In 1598, the “land of Pittarthie with certain others, including the fortalice, manor-place etc” were granted by James VI to Andrew Logan of Easter Granton and his heirs. According to this bequest, the estate had supposedly been willingly given up by its previous owner, James Monypenny of Pitmelie (Pitmilly), who is most frequently associated with financing the construction of this fortified structure or structures at Pittarthie.
Walter Wood, writing in the mid-19th century, suggests that Pittarthie was acquired by David Wood in the early 17th century and that the land was subsequently inherited by Isabel Wood and Andrew Hamilton in 1626. According to this account, the estate was then divided c.1636, with Andrew Bruce acquiring one part, and Chesters and Brunton passing to Eliezer Borthwick. This Andrew Bruce appears to be the son William Bruce of Symbister and Sumburgh. Wood places the passing of Pittarthie from Andrew to his son William in 1644, though the retour which preserves this inheritence is dated to 1654. Alterations were made to the tower house over the subsequent decades, as is evidenced by a semi-circular pediment bearing the initials W.B. and year 1682 which was inserted above a south facing window on the first floor. As a result of this particular renovation, this William Bruce has frequently been mistaken for the famous 17th century Scottish architect, Sir William Bruce of Kinross. The earliest known occurrence of this appears in Rev. James Roger’s account of the Parish of Dunino in 1845, in which Roger claims there is an inscription on the east of the tower house associating its renovations with Sir William Bruce and the year 1653, and this statement was upheld as fact as recently as 2016 within the Statement of National Importance associated with the site. No recent survey has identified an inscription bearing this date. This confusion may have originally stemmed from Sir Robert Sibbald’s History, Ancient and Modern, of the Sheriffdoms of Fife and Kinross published in 1710 – which Roger cites in 1845 – in which a list of heritors can easily be misinterpreted as implying that Sir John Bruce of Kinross, or one of his descendants, had acquired Pittarthie. William Bruce of Pittarthie is presumed to have died in or before 1700, as two retours from this year survive, noting that the estate was inherited by his brother, Alexander. “Captain Alexander Bruce of Pittarthie” is mentioned in three acts of Parliament – all lists of lairds and nobles; all concerned with raising a special levy for the Crown – in 1708, 1710, and 1713.
This final parliamentary act represents the last known reference to the Bruce’s of Pittarthie. In 1845, Roger claimed “that Pittarthie was forfeited to the Crown before being sold to the Earl of Glencairn”, though, as Millar notes, Roger cites no evidence to support this claim. Considering the political situation in Scotland during the early-18th century, it is tempting to suggest that Captain Alexander Bruce may have been a Jacobite who was stripped of his assets following the rising of 1715. No evidence has been found so far to support this and, considering that Sir William Bruce of Kinross fell out of favour with the Crown as a result of his sympathies for the king over the water, we must once again be cautious to not confuse the histories or these two families. Whilst we cannot be certain about the circumstances that saw Pittarthie exchange hands, a signature associated with grant of “Part of Pitarthie”, presumably that part which had belonged to the Bruces, to John Cunningham and Elizabeth Halsone is dated to the 13th of February 1721. The Cunningham family appear to have maintained ownership of the estate for the rest of the 18th century – ‘Cunningham Esqr’ appearing above a depiction of the tower house on a map by John Ainsly published in 1775. However, their descendants were either unable or unwilling to provide for the Castle’s maintenance. By 1827, according to a survey of the counties of Kinross and Fife conducted by John Dower, the tower house had fallen into a ruinous state and in 1845 it was described as having “long been unroofed and unrepaired” by the minister of the local parish.
Whilst the occupation of at least the upper floor of Pittarthie Castle came to an end in the early-19th century, the estates agricultural potential continued to be exploited by its owners and tenants. In 1794, the session clerk and schoolmaster William West described the soils as generally “in a great measure, wet and spungy; in most of the farms of the parish, frequently broken by large swamps and fens”. According to Roger, by 1845 Pittarthie and several other estates within Dunino had “been in-closed with stone fences, and in general substantially drained” – perhaps emulating the agricultural improvements Sir William Areskine implemented at Dunino estate in the late-18th century. Drainage works continued at Pittarthie during the 1850s according to advertisements in the Fife Herald offering the estates grasslands for rent. The lands associated with Pittarthie appear to have remained predominantly dedicated to pasture into the late-19th century.
Petardy Historic Landscape Project 