Earlshall

Earlshall castle was built near the village of Leuchars by successive earls of Fife between the 15th and 17th centuries. The first Earl of Fife, Sir Alexander Bruce, received charters for the land in 1497, and the mansion was progressively built by his son, Sir William Bruce, then his son, Alexander Bruce and his wife Elizabeth Leslie, then their son, William Bruce, with his first wife, Margaret Meldrum and second wife, D. Agnes Lyndsay. Margaret Meldrum was the mistress of Earlshall from before 1510 until her death after 1522.

Earlshall is a three-storey, L-plan building with attics and a circular tower at north-east corner and a smaller stair tower at the north-west corner of the courtyard. Occupying the entire second floor is a ‘painted gallery’ (withdrawing room) decorated in black and white, with 20 or 30 mottos painted around the walls in Roman lettering. Above the substantial fireplace is an arcaded frieze with a central panel depicting the Bruce and Meldrum arms, including the carved initials W.B., William Bruce, and M.M., Margaret Meldrum (of Seggie).

References

—David MacGibbon and Thomas Ross, 1887, The Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland From the Twelfth to the Eighteenth Century, vol. 2. Edinburgh: David Douglas, pp. 282–290.

—‘Margaret (Meldrum) Bruce (abt. 1492–aft. 1522)’, WikiTree.