Royal Commission on the Ancient Monuments of Scotland
307. Garden Walls and Heraldic Panel, Kinnaird House. The kitchen garden of Kinnaird House, which stands a short distance to the SW. of the mansion, covers an area of approximately two acres (104 yds. by 90 yds.) and is enclosed by remarkably fine walls of handmade brick, in English garden bond, with a flat freestone cor nice. The E. wall, however, shows rubble masonry on its E. or outer side, and brick only on the W. The outside of the S. wall is harled, and the N., S. and W. walls have shallow external pilasters. The N. wall stands 13 ft. 6 in. high, and seems to have been rebuilt above a height of 10 ft.; there is a wide, round-headed entrance at its E. end. An opening in the E. wall, 12 ft. 4 in. wide in its upper part and flanked by carved stone lions, contains ornamental ironwork rising from a low wall, 2 ft. 7 in. high, through which opens an iron gate. The E. and W. walls are 10 ft. high and the S. wall 7 ft. 6 in.; there is a small door in the centre of the W. wall and another near the SE. corner. The NW. corner is rounded.
Inset in the E. wall, immediately N. of the opening, there is a carved panel of yellowish freestone 1 ft. 4 in. high by 1 ft. 1 in. wide. It bears a cabled roundel enclos ing a shield parted per pale and charged: Dexter, a saltire, on a chief two mullets; sinister, a heart over the initials M D, on a chief two mullets. The shield divides the initials R B, and above it is the date 1602 divided by the letter M; these letters evidently refer to the Rev. Robert Bruce of Kinnaird, second son of Sir Alexander Bruce of Airth and builder of the first parish church of Larbert (p.157). The arms are his and those of his wife Martha, daughter of Sir George Douglas of Pittendriech,2 whom he married in 1590, her initials being added to the Douglas heart in the sinister half.
883848 NS 88 SE 13 April 1954
2. Bruce, M. E. Cumming, Family Records of the Bruces and the Cumyns, 348 ff.