Hill of Tarvit Mansion House: Fife’s Largest Collector’s Cabinet

By Kasia Middleton

This autumn, looking to bolster my CV, I made the excellent decision to reach out to the lovely folk who look after the National Trust for Scotland’s Hill of Tarvit mansion house [Fig. 1.]. This is a fabulous Edwardian home on the doorstep of St Andrews, just outside Cupar. For the last few weeks, I’ve been volunteering there and learning about the incredible collections housed within, and each time I return, I learn something that renders it more special. I therefore felt it was my duty to share!

Fig 1 The exterior of the Hill of Tarvit mansion house. Photo courtesy of the National Trust for Scotland.

Most of my time is spent greeting guests who first walk through the door in the reception area, which would have been a hallway when the house was a family home [Fig. 2]. It is complete with a little side room containing original Edwardian jackets [Fig. 3]! On my first day, I listened to the introduction I was to give before guests were admitted to the house only once before I felt able to give it myself. The story is fascinating, as I hope to make clear below.

Fig 2 Reception area at Hill of Tarvit. Photo courtesy of the author.

Fig 3 Side room of hallway at Hill of Tarvit. Photo courtesy of the author.

The house itself is deceptively modern. It was built between 1904 and 1908 by famous Scottish architect Robert Lorimer on behalf of Frederick Sharp [Fig. 4], a young financier and industrialist whose family had made their money through the manufacture of jute in Dundee. Wanting to move himself and his young family (at that point comprised of Beatrice his wife and Hugh his son) closer to the Royal and Ancient Golf Club in St Andrews, he purchased Wemyss Hall, the much older, dry-rotted construction that was renovated into Hill of Tarvit. What is so special about the mansion is that it was built around a collection of antiques, rather than being gradually filled with items by a collector. More on why that is so special and important later.

Fig 4 Photographs of Frederick and his wife Beatrice in a scrapbook at Hill of Tarvit. Photo courtesy of the author.

For now, we return to the Sharps. After extensive renovations, in 1908, the family moved into the house. A daughter, Elisabeth, was born in 1910, and the Sharps became a fixture of the local community in Fife. A nine-hole golf course (still playable today!) and landscaped gardens completed the grounds. I am hesitant to make populist comparisons for fear of inaccuracy, but since the Scottish Tourist Board are happy to suggest alignment between Hill of Tarvit and Downton Abbey, I suppose I must. I admit, that is how I like to imagine the Sharps living whenever I am in the house. Indeed, sometimes I wonder if the modern fixtures in the house, such as the telephone, triple taps (cold, hot, and rainwater) or Remirol (Lorimer backwards) plumbed bathroom [Figs. 5, 6, 7] were adopted with similar reticence to the characters of the beloved programme.

Fig 5 The telephone at Hill of Tarvit. Photo courtesy of the author.

Fig 6 The triple taps at Hill of Tarvit. Photo courtesy of the author.

Fig 7 The upstairs bathroom at Hill of Tarvit. Photo courtesy of the author.

The Sharps very much made Hill of Tarvit a family home, and it is how the NTS like to keep it today – almost exactly as it would have been when they lived there. If you do visit (which I very much hope some might!) you’ll notice little in the way of information plaques, and a multitude of lovely human guides who know every nook and cranny of the mansion. It is a tribute to the immense gift the Sharp family left us.

Indeed, some might be wondering why exactly the National Trust for Scotland own the mansion. Unfortunately, it comes down to a series of tragedies. Ultimately, the Sharp family only lived at Tarvit for 40 years before it came into the hands of the NTS. Frederick Sharp, holidaying in Aviemore in 1932, died unexpectedly of a heart attack. Hugh [Fig. 8] inherited the mansion after his father’s death, and aged 40, found a fiancée to settle down with. She lived out in the west of Scotland, and a few days before their engagement party in December 1937, as Hugh travelled to visit her on a particularly snowy night, he was involved in the Castlecary railway disaster, and was sadly one of the 35 people killed. Beatrice and her daughter Elisabeth continued to live at Tarvit until Beatrice’s death aged 82 in 1946. Hugh had had no children, and Elisabeth had not married. She was heavily involved in the local community, organising exhibitions of her father’s collection in Cupar and St Andrews, helping with the war effort, and working as a Girl Guides Commissioner. As the last of the Sharp family, when she was dealt a devastating final blow in the form of a terminal thyroid cancer diagnosis it is therefore perfectly understandable that she didn’t want her family home fought over by twenty-five first cousins, and instead handed everything over to the NTS, including a sizeable grant to maintain the house. Elisabeth died in 1948, aged 38.

Fig 8 Photographs of Hugh in the album at Hill of Tarvit. Photo courtesy of the author.

The National Trust for Scotland opened the doors of Tarvit to the public in 1949. It was not an especially successful venture – houses like this one were living memory, and lives were being rebuilt after the war. Due to a lack of interest, a tenant was secured from 1952 to 1977. The Marie Curie Foundation opened the first-ever UK hospice on the upper floor of the mansion, and remnants of the adjustments made are still visible in the panelling today [Fig. 9]. As patient care standards and interest in Edwardian mansions grew concurrently, Marie Curie moved out and the NTS moved back in. Incidentally, there is a reel of tickets under the welcome desk at Tarvit which must date back to the period between 1949 and 1952 [Fig. 10] – they are priced in shillings, which had been out of use for six years in 1977 when the house reopened to the public.

Fig 9 Holes for the screws which held an extra railing in place during Tarvit's time as a hospice. Photo courtesy of the author.

Fig 10 Tickets from a reel dating from 1949-52. Photo courtesy of the author.

In a way, the tragedies which befell the Sharps have allowed their lives to continue in Fife far beyond their spans. Their family home remains practically as it was, complete and with the collections of art safely stowed away in the drawing room by Marie Curie matrons. It is in this room where we find the most special parts of the house. It is exactly as Robert Lorimer intended, matching antiques and décor still in place. 16th century tapestries were accommodated in a made-to-measure baronial hall, Chinese porcelain is stuffed into a pagoda-style cabinet, and Frederick’s preferred paintings hang in long, gallery-esque corridors, including ones by the likes of Bruegel the Elder, Ramsay and Fantin-Latour, for which receipts were discovered in 1999 [Fig. 11]. Tarvit offers a unique insight into life in the early 20th century. Those who work there say it sometimes feels like the family walked out seconds before visitors walk in. The table is set for dinner, the piano is open to be played, and the beds are made for a night’s sleep.

Fig 11 1905 receipt for three paintings. Photo courtesy of the National Trust for Scotland.

It is in this insight, as well as the house’s unique design as, effectively, a large collector’s cabinet, that I find the most pleasure. I offer up some of my favourite little details: the matching door-handles of Diana and the stag in the French-style drawing room [Fig. 12], the unique echoing ceiling in Beatrice’s bedroom [Fig. 13], the fun taxidermied frogs sword-fighting in the upstairs bathroom [Fig. 14], and the twin saltires in the plasterwork and door-handles of the hallway [Fig. 15].

Fig 12 Diana and the Stag Doorhandles at Hill of Tarvit. Photo courtesy of the author.

Fig 13 Beatrice's bedroom with its echoing rounded ceiling. Hill of Tarvit. Photo courtesy of the author.

Fig 14 Taxidermy frogs - found in the cupboard, and a mystery where they came from! Hill of Tarvit upstairs bathroom. Photo courtesy of the author.

Fig. 15 Coordinated saltires in the hallway at Hill of Tarvit. Photo courtesy of the author.

You might expect it to be a sad place, given the history I’ve just related, but I think it’s a very special example of what it means to remember history and those who lived throughout it. Hill of Tarvit is a fun and beautiful place, with lots to discover. My favourite part of working there is opening the door to let visitors into the hall and hearing their little noises of appreciation. There is no lingering miasma of family tragedy or hospice sobriety, just the gentle, warm ticking-along of a house filled with friendly faces and wonderful stories. Please do come along and visit when we re-open in the spring – I would love to open the door for you!

Bibliography

Hill, Alexandra. “A Ribbiting Display.” 23rd November 2018. Accessed 20th October 2024. https://www.nts.org.uk/stories/a-ribbiting-display

Riches, Ian and Antonia Laurence-Allen. “Hill of Tarvit picture bills and receipts.” 26th April 2019. Accessed 20th October 2024. https://www.nts.org.uk/stories/hill-of-tarvit-picture-bills-and-receipts

Visit Scotland. “Hill of Tarvit Mansion and Garden.” Accessed 20th October 2024. https://www.visitscotland.com/info/see-do/hill-of-tarvit-mansion-garden-p250581