Gunsgreen House

About Gunsgreen House

Continue along this side of the harbour to reach Gunsgreen House and Nisbet’s Tower next to it. The tower named after John Nisbet the first owner of Gunsgreen House (and a smuggler) is believed to have been a carriage house and also appears on early maps as a doocot. Below the house’s imposing buttressed wall which retains the green, there is a pathway leading to the smuggler’s passage an entry to a system of tunnels and cellars under Gunsgreen and beyond though these are now blocked steps from Smuggler’s Passage lead to Gunsgreen which was a meeting place where the annual Herring Queen crowning ceremony took place before the new harbour extension was built.

The house has the reputation of being the one time home and haunt of smugglers and the house might almost have been designed with this in mind
There are secret passages and recesses between the walls of the rooms and a fireplace which could be swung out of place like a gate revealing a secret passage and ladder to an apartment below Also an illicit store which would have been used to hide tea when it was heavily taxed in the mid 18th century.
The Gunsgreen Estate belonged at one time to Robert Logan of Restalrig who was connected with the infamous Gowrie conspiracy a plot to kill King James VI in revenge for the execution of William, Earl of Gowrie

Gunsgreen House is not currently open to the public due to storm damage in 2021, it hopes to have some limited opening in summer 2022.