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:
“I ask whether the mere eating of human flesh so very far exceeds in barbarity that custom which only a few years since was practised in enlightened England:Ma convicted traitor, perhaps a man found guilty of honesty, patriotism, and suchlike heinous crimes, had his head lopped off with a huge axe, his bowels dragged out and thrown into a fire; while his body, carved into four quarters, was with his head exposed upon pikes, and permitted to rot and fester among the public haunts of men!”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare,
The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city-square;
Ah, such a life, such a life, as one leads at the window there!”
—Robert Browning (1812–1889)