Keir Home Farm - with SAS connections - Aug 09 - very pic heavy
Keir Home Farm and Sawmill
Designed and built in 1832 this was the home farm to the Keir Estate in Perthshire. No ordinary estate with heritage and ancestry dating back over 570 years. Most of the family have been prominent for one reason or another. In recent history the estate was home to Colonel Sir David Stirling the founder of the SAS whose memorial can be found near here
The farm and sawmill were added to the estate by David Stirling’s grandfather Sir William Stirling Maxwell and his initials are clearly visible here with the words “Gang Forward” the family motto.
an even earlier seal that can be traced back to the Lukas de Striveling – First laird of Keir in 1448 can also be seen
The Stirlings were famed for their horses but they also kept greyhounds and the farm has festooned on it sculptures
The buildings themselves are List A and looking at the architecture its clear why
Re: Keir Home Farm - with SAS connections - Aug 09 - very pic heavy
Which brings me to the rather ornate clocktower , I believe that most of the valuables and probably including the clocks were sold off in 1995 by Christies – the present Laird sold the main house in 1975 to a Mahdi – al Tajir – greatly to his wifes amusement as he didn’t tell her till a year after the sale, when she refused to move out and partioned 12 rooms in the main house and lived there till 1983 when she passed away. Included in the sale of the house was 180 acres of parkland and 35,000 acres of land including the water source where Highland Spring water is bottled from.
the clocktower has inscriptions on it in bright red lettering
“ tis later with the wish than hes aware”
“hours are times darts and one comes wingd with death”
“take time time ere time be tent”
Moving into the house there are some remarkable wallpapers to blind the most unsuspecting
the date that this house closed its door finally so far has remained elusive to me but under carpets I found newspapers dated 1985.
I found this what must be a prototype washing machine by “Acme” the same make as the one at Pirniehall
don’t know what this is
and then onto the sawmill
sorry for such a large report on a lowly farm folks I just couldn’t portray this explore with much less – thanks for looking.
