Site overview
Melville House, Dovecot stands near Melville House in the parish of Collessie. Trove and Canmore record it as an eighteenth-century dovecot and also as a windmill. The circular dovecot appears to have been converted from a windmill and stands on an artificial mound above a vaulted chamber.
Map
History
Melville House, Dovecot is a former windmill or windmill-derived dovecot near Melville House in Fife. Trove and Canmore record the site at NO 30271 12657 and give Windmill as an alternative name. The site is classified as an eighteenth-century dovecot and as a windmill of unassigned period.
RCAHMS described the dovecot as circular and apparently converted from a windmill, standing on an artificial mound above a vaulted chamber. Later Ordnance Survey fieldwork recorded it as roofless but otherwise as described, standing on a flat-topped mound about 20 metres in diameter and 3 metres high, with a barrel vault beneath. Donnachie and Stewart identify the Melville House or Collessie structure as a small tower mill, probably late eighteenth century, converted to a dovecot after its abandonment as a windmill.
No detailed working chronology, machinery description, ownership sequence, or final working date has been established from the sources checked.