Carnbee

There was a castle at Carnbee belonging to the Melville family although nothing of it now remains and it was replaced by Carnbee House.

In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the lands of Carnbee, Crail and Kingsbarns seem to have been settled extensively by royal servants and minor officers of the Crown due to their proximity to the royal residence of Crail Castle.

In 1479 John Melville of Carnbee was the owner of Grantoun House, also known as Granton Castle, the principle residence in the barony of Wester Granton.

In the 16th century Sir John Melville of Carnbee married Jean Lindsay, grand-daughter of Patrick Lindsay, 4th Lord Lindsay of the Byres.

In 1593 Sir John was denounced a rebel for not appearing to answer a charge laid on him by the tenants of “the king’s lands of Kingsbarns” for illegally constructing a mill on those lands. In January of the following year John Fermour of Kingsbarns complained to the Privy Council that after the tenants of Kingsbarns had started an action against Sir John, that Sir John, James Melville, Sir John’s cousin, Robert Betoun of Balfour, and their servants had set upon him and shot him in the head with a pistolet, leaving him for dead. Only Sir John was convicted and was merely bound over to keep the peace.

The castle was extended or remodelled in the 17th century and a stone carved with the date 1638 survives built into a later house.

In January 1663 Ord of Carnbee’s waiting-woman, Isabel Ramsay, married Colonel James Lumsdaine of Innergellie, a marriage which the Colonel’s children and friends didn’t approve of.

In 1813 what was then known as Carnbee Place was demolished and replaced by Carnbee House.