Melville House lies to the southside of Monimail in Fife. It was built in 1697 by the architect James Smith (c.1645 - 1731) for George Melville, 1st Earl of Melville, incorporating the 14th Century Monimail Tower. The Melville State Bed was given to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 1949 where it is described as "the most spectacular single exhibit in the Victoria and Albert Museum's British Galleries". During the 20th Century the house was used to billet Polish soldiers during World War II before being bought by Dalhousie Preparatory School, when they moved premises to Melville House, from Dalhousie Castle, Bonnyrigg. It remained a private preparatory school for a large number of years, before Dalhousie finally closed, and and later became a reform school for Young Offenders.
It is the most expensive repossessed property in Britain.
Famous quotes containing the words melville and/or house:
“The sailor is frankness, the landsman is finesse. Life is not a game with the sailor, demanding the long head—no intricate game of chess where few moves are made in straight-forwardness and ends are attained by indirection, an oblique, tedious, barren game hardly worth that poor candle burnt out in playing it.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“I dwell in a lonely house I know
That vanished many a summer ago....”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)