BALCARRES ESTATE

Art, interior design and glorious gardens are a passion at this lush expanse of Fife countryside, home to the Earls of Crawford since 1580

- Photography David Wheeler Words Anna Burnside

Should you be walking your dog in the woods of the Balcarres Estate in East Fife, you may well see a man busy with a buzzing power tool. It could be the full-time forester who looks after the spectacular trees. Or it could be the 30th Earl of Crawford who, aged 66, still puts in a regular shift. “Dad likes to get out with the chainsaw once a week,” smiles his son, Lord Alexander Balniel. “Looking after the woods is a whole family activity.”

The estate's 5,000 acres of arable land, pasture and trees, plus a golf course that looks out over Largo Bay and the Forth, are a family business - that is, a business run by a family who have lived here since 1580 and have one of the country’s most ancient titles.

Three generations of the Lindsays - that's their clan name - currently live in Balcarres House. This A-listed mansion, built by the second son of the ninth earl, became the family seat in the 16th century. It had a 19th-century glow-up and is now home to the earl and his wife, plus Alexander, his American wife Alli and their two little boys.

Alexander, the oldest of four siblings and the heir to the title, did not have this on his bingo card when he left St Andrews University, or at least not until he was considerably older. But lockdown brought him and Alli back to Scotland and fast forwarded his role in the estate’s future. After a few months in the big house, the couple looked around for a separate property to make their own home. They alighted on the East Lodge, a whitewashed cottage with a mature garden. The renovations began.