Redhall house page

There has been a house or cottage at Redhall for several hundred years as is shown by the inclusion of Redhall and Redhall Cottage on Ainslie's map of 1794 and, by the evidence of the items listed below, people have lived in the area for thousands of years.

The tumulus to the East of the house.
An Earth house to the South and indications of another to the West.
a bronze axe head found half-way between the tumulus and the house,
a bronze dagger found on the banks of the river below the house,
a square barrow to the North of the Hill of Redhall, and
crop marks indicating a variety of habitations to the East.

These have included my wife's great-great-grandfather, James Guthrie, who retired to Redhall and died here at 2pm. on August 27th, 1876 at the age of 82.

A more detailed history of the area and Redhall can be found in our book Redhall: The First 4000 Years, Moira and Philip Bolt, ISBN 979-8-5978-1258-8 obtainable from Amazon at £20.

Ancient maps of the locality

Click an image for a larger map.

Timothy Pont, 1580's/1590's

R & J Gordon, 1636 - 1652

Roy, 1747-52

John Ainslie, 1794

John Thomson, 1825

Blackadder, 1833

The oldest tree in the area is this Sycamore.

It was big enough in 1861 to be included on the 6":mile map shown below, to the west and slightly North of the 'Redhall' of that time.

This is a superimposition of the 1861 map, (in black), and the current edition, (white).

The red areas show the sites of the various houses, cottages and tile works, none of which any longer exist, 'though spoilt tiles can be found on the bluff to the South of the works.

I hope to find the time to research this to see when the works was active. I imagine that the tiles were for land-drainage rather than roofing and possible contemporary with the surge in agriculture which followed the excavation of marl from the Loch of Kinnordy in the 1740s.

The building to the west of the tiles works is thought to be the drying shed and not worker's cottages. Four cottages were built in that area after the tile works ceased production which burnt down in 1925.

We built the present house in 1988 - 90, about 5m North and 4m West of the 'Redhall' shown on the maps.

This was Redhall shortly after we'd finished it in the Winter of 1990.The short gable was built for the addition of a conservatory which we couldn't afford at the time.

This is Redhall after the conservatory and garage had been added onto the South gable end in 1993.