Bamff House

Bamff House is a privately occupied mansion house sat on high ground overlooking the valley of the Burn of Auchrannie, a minor tributary of the Isla, to the north of the Hill of Alyth. The mansion, which has a tower house of the 16th century at the western end, sits in a substantial private estate and is not visible from public roads.

The lands of Bamff were granted by King Alexander II to “Nesso medico nostro” – his doctor Ness – in the year 1232. Ness is on record as having held lands from David de Hastings, the Earl of Atholl in right of his wife, which he granted to Cupar Abbey. He was not named Ramsay by name, but his son Malcolm had that designation. The barony of Bamff, as it became, passed from father to son until the death of Alexander de Ramsay in 1507, and then only from grandfather to grandson as Alexander had outlived his heir Gilbert. Ness, the grandson, was then followed by Alexander in 1530, George in 1556, another George in 1580, and Gilbert in 1600 – all of whom were father to son inheritances. At some point in the 16th century one of these men erected a tower house at Bamff, presumably incorporating buildings or masonry from earlier structures, and a (now vanished) ditch shown on the early Ordnance Survey map shows the possible location of associated defences. Pont’s map shows a four storey tower with a lower wing, together with the name “G Ramsay” which doesn’t help much!

The Ramsays of Bamff appear to have avoided getting too heavily involved in the internecine conflicts of the 14th and 15th centuries. Nevertheless, they were clearly well-established and respected members of the local gentry, with marriages into the locally dominant Ogilvie family amongst others. The son of the Gilbert who inherited in 1600 was made a baronet in 1666, in acknowledgement of his services against the Covenanters in the Pentlands that year Gilbert was another long-lived Ramsay, and when he died in 1730 was succeeded by his younger son. In 1790 the sixth baronet was killed in a duel in Musselburgh – after a quarrel which had caused his opponent to cudgel Lady Ramsay’s manservant. It was the ninth baronet who commissioned substantial alterations to Bamff House, although it had previously been extended. These took place between 1820 and 1843, when Robert Burn designed the remodelling of the house. The Ramsay family continue to hold Bamff to this date, running the estate as an eco-friendly business including holiday lets.

Bamff House official website

HES Canmore database entry