PASSAGIUM REGINAE The - Royal Dunfermline

The name Pitfirrane is derived from the Gaelic pit a hollow and fearan, land
the hollow of the land. The house stands in a spacious park full of very fine
trees, including sycamores, elms, beeches, horse-chestnuts, and limes, some of
them of considerable age. There is one tree in particular, standing on the west
side of the house, a gigantic lime, remarkable for its spread, which is formed
by seven lower boughs that sweep downwards and fan out into smaller
branches until they make almost an unbroken circle. Having touched the
ground they curl up again in manner of horse-chestnuts, and at the points of
contact some of the branches throw up vertical shoots ten and twelve feet high.
Eight feet from the ground the bole of the tree is enormous. A portrait of this
giant and its measurements, have been published in The Scottish Field. As
recorded on the tree itself, they are; height, 78 ft.; girth 18 ft.; spread 298 ft.
The house dates back to a very remote antiquity, the earliest portion having
been built in the eleventh century. Considerable additions were made in the
fifteenth century. The walls ae in many places eight to ten feet thick contain
several secret passages. One of these is reached by a „secret‟ door at the foot
of the fine stone spiral staircase which leads to the drawing-room. It too has a
staircase, very narrow, and long since closed up, with a secret exit that is now,
and probably always was, high up on the south wall of the room which the late
Sir Arthur Halkett used as his study. This comparatively large stone-vaulted
chamber, all plastered over, was probably once a pen into which cattle were
driven during a Highland raid; for many country houses of this size 500 years
ago had such places for the shelter and protection of cattle at night. An
enormous malleable-iron gate of the ancient prison type, hanging now between
two stone pillars near the garden, and which was found some years ago lying
derelict, is supposed to have been the gate of the pen, and the „secret‟ door
high up in the wall would be the one through which the family could enter the
house by means of a ladder.
There are many works of art at Pitfirrane, and the history of the Halketts may
be traced far back on its walls. An early link in its lengthy chain of notable
events, and one of the most interesting, is, however, not a picture, but a stirrupcup,
which stands in the corridor close to the front door – a tall dusky claretcoloured
wine-glass with a colourless glass stem of elaborate and fanciful
design. It is of the type known as FlÛgel-glăss (winged glass), made in Italy in
the sixteenth, century and later in Germany and Holland. Inside the stem runs
a scarlet thread which saith tradition quivered if there was poison in the wine.
From this cup James VI, quaffed a few mouthfuls of sack just before he left
Dunfermline Palace for England. It was taken back that very night by Sir
Robert Halkett to Pitfirrane, and there it has remained ever since. The
attractive bit of glass-work now stands in a large canopied case, designed and
built by the late Sir Noel Paton, R.S.A., out of oak from the old Abbey Church
at Dunfermline. On the floor of the case beside the cup is a gold ring, which
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