DOVECOTE'S
Dovecot b Ratho Park ©
In Grant and Cassells Old and New Edinburgh it is recorded that:-“In many instances these little edifices in Scotland survive the manor-houses and castles to which they were attached, by chance perhaps, rather than in consequence of the old superstition that if one was pulled down the lady of the family would die within a year of the event. By the law of James I it was a felony to destroy a “dovecote” and by the laws of James VI no man could build one in a heugh, or in the country, unless he had lands to the value of ten chalders of victual yearly within two miles of the said “dovecote”.
Dovecot Ratho Hall ©
