Tillicoultry House – and grounds

This house was built on the lower slopes of the Ochills as a shooting lodge and was never a pretentious building. It was an ideal family home for the young Wardlaw Ramsays, who could stride out, gun in hand and dog at heel, to spend many a happy day walking in the hills, and occasionally looking down on their home to watch their mother sketching in the garden. Here is a sketch of the house  by Lady Anne which has been preserved in an album. 

A description of the house can be found in letter AL Acc 9769

After the family moved into the newly-built Whitehill, Robert donated a walk through the cemetery and grounds of Tillicoultry  House to the people of Tillcoultry, in perpetuity. As the donation makes clear, the gift was to “the factory operatives, who are pent up through the day, that they may… enjoy a ramble through the lovely walks and breathe the pure air of Nature”.

The grounds contained two early medieval gravestones, which were carefully protected in wooden cases with lids that could be raised to view the stones. These monuments were entirely surrounded by a housing estate in the 20th century, and have disappeared.
The house burnt down in the 20th century. All that is left today is the East wall of the park.