Buildings

Doo’cot

This unusual turreted doo’cot is home to hundreds of pigeon/dove nest boxes which line the inside of the building. On this building, a very worn and carved stone bears the Ogilvy and Guthrie arms, and the date 1643. It is probable that the turreted towers were added at a later date, possibly about 1800 with one turret containing further nesting boxes and the other serving as a feed store. Doo’cot (Scots) or a Dovecot, served as an important food source to the house and the bird droppings were also used for leather tanning and the making of gunpowder.

Wash House

Situated next to the Vinny Water is a ‘Gothick’ wash house. Sometimes mistaken for a chapel, it was built over 200 years ago as a laundry for the house.

Steading

The farm buildings are built in a quadrangle that incorporate two cottages and are located by the entrance to the gardens. All these buildings are scarcely changed today, and have date stones of  the 1770’s period. The buildings have been restored in stages since the 1980s. The potting shed roof shows a roof wonderfully held together by vegetation, mainly ferns.

Bridges

The two stone bridges carrying the public road are found by the woodland garden and over the Vinny Water and were built as result of a lawsuit to move the road behind the house and have date stones of 1819 and 1841.

Pictish Stone

A Pictish Stone cross slab bears witness to an earlier period of habituation here.  The stone is believed date from the ninth or tenth century. Moved when the railway was built at Guthrie, it is now located in the garden of North Lodge.

Ha-Ha

The ha-ha wall that separates the Policy Field from the lawn in front of the house was built by Farquhar Ogilvie in the late 1960s from stone acquired after the closure of Guthrie Station. It gives an uninterrupted view of the landscape beyond from the house.