The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
TOWERING CREATION
A historic tower in the East Neuk of Fife has been lovingly restored and extended in a remarkable building project. Jack McKeown finds out more about beautiful Lundin Tower.
Lundin Tower is an exceptional home made even more extraordinary by being the work of just one man. Helen Sherry and her late husband Eddie bought it in the 1980s. At that time the building was a six-storey 16th Century tower with some ruined walls attached to it. Over more than 20 years, Eddie painstakingly rebuilt, restored and extended the tower into a unique and stunning family home.
Lundin Tower lies just outside Lundin Links in the East Neuk of Fife. The tower house sits up its own private drive, which runs between two fields and past a band of woodland.
It takes just 10 minutes to walk into the village centre yet Lundin Tower feels secluded and peaceful. The beach and Lundin Links Golf Course are also just a few hundred yards
away.
STEEPED IN HISTORY
Mary Queen of Scots is said to have stayed at Lundin Tower in February of 1565.
A castle existed on the site from the 14th Century and belonged to the Lundin family. It passed by marriage to the Drummonds in 1670 and they forfeited it after the Jacobite Uprising in 1745.
The tower once formed part of Old Lundin House, a mansion that was demolished in 1876. Latterly the ruined tower was owned by former East Fife MP Sir John Gilmour. He sold it to a couple from Edinburgh, who made it wind and watertight before Helen and Eddie bought it.
A huge pair of solid timber arched doors handmade by Eddie open into an entrance hall with a cloakroom and store off it. The hall is roomy as an entrance space but it would be a bit small as a living room. However, this is what it was used for during the first few years of the renovation, with the kitchen squeezed into the cloakroom.
“This was our living room for goodness knows how long while Eddie got the rest of the house built,” Helen explains.
Eddie was an electrician and carried out most of the building work himself. “It was just him and a labourer. He was a really strong man and worked really hard on the house,” Helen remembers.
REMARKABLE RESTORATION
Lundin Tower is a testimony to his and Helen’s hard work, belief and perseverance. It’s now a stunning and unique family home.
The entrance hall leads into a corridor that runs past the tower’s beautiful spiral stone staircase. It opens into a utility room, with a striking barrel-vaulted stone ceiling.
The open-plan kitchen and family room is a lovely comfortable space that fills one end of the house. To one side of the room is the kitchen, while comfy armchairs are arranged round a log-burning stove in a stone fireplace. A door leads out onto a west-facing patio.
Off the family room is a dining room with feature exposed stone wall. Easily the most impressive room is the drawing room,
which has a magnificent, double-height, vaulted ceiling with exposed timber beams and a galleried landing above. Three ornate south- facing windows throw in light and a beautiful hand-carved timber fire surround provides an additional focal point.
STONE STAIRCASE
The first of the stone staircase’s many flights leads to the expansive first floor of Lundin Tower. The gallery overlooks the drawing room and would be a fine place to read a book or even set up a home office.
The enormous principal bedroom is a suite in itself, with a bed, sitting area, dressing room and a large en suite bathroom.
A spacious guest bedroom also has an en suite, a dressing room and a study. There are two more bedrooms and a family bathroom on the first floor.
Up another flight of stairs is the second floor. Currently set up as loft space, it has three front-facing windows, a side window and an access door on to the roof. At present it is divided into four large storage rooms but there is plenty of potential to convert it into several bedrooms, a single stunning master suite or even an annex apartment.
EXPLORING THE TOWER
Spiral stone stairs continue to twist their way up the tower’s six storeys and then on to the roof.
The third and fourth floors have a landing and a void. The fifth and sixth floors both contain rooms about the size of a good double bedroom. These enjoy exceptional views – particularly the sixth floor, which gazes across Largo Bay to the East Lothian coastline – and would make fantastic home offices.
A final set of stairs winds up to a turret where a door opens on to the tower’s roof terrace.
It’s been quite a climb, but the vista is more than worth the effort. The twin mounds of Largo Law sit behind, while to the front is the golf course, beach and the glittering sea, It is quite simply breathtaking.
If I owned Lundin Tower I would be up here every day. From coffee in the morning with the sunrise to a whisky in the evening with the sunset (and extra caution on the stairs afterwards) it would offer no end of joy.
THREE ACRES TO ENJOY
Lundin Tower comes with three acres of land, including garden, a paddock and a belt of trees. A farm track leads into woodland to the west of the house. “We used to have dogs and it was a great place for them,” Helen continues. “You can walk through the woods to Blacketyside Farm Shop.”
To the front of the house is a stretch of lawn, while there is a patio to the west and to the rear of Lundin Tower. At the other side of the house is a large gravel parking area.
A garage block sits behind the main house and has potential to be converted into further accommodation.
Sections of the garden remain unlandscaped, a relic of the extensive building works that have taken place here. They offer a blank canvas to anyone buying Lundin Tower.
Since coming on the market just over a week ago Helen has been inundated with viewings and it would be amazing if Lundin Tower doesn’t go to a closing date very soon.
Sadly Eddie passed away six years ago at the age of 78. While Lundin Tower wasn’t entirely done by then, he lived to see most of the project completed.
Helen has spent the time since she lost her husband finishing the work Eddie began.
“I had some help but I did all the woodwork and painting myself, which was exhausting,” she says.
She’s now looking to downsize. “This house is far too big for me and I’d like to be closer to other people,” she says. “A nice cottage in Anstruther would be perfect for me.”
Lundin Tower is on sale with Savills for offers over £750,000.