Kellie Castle & Garden

Kellie Castle stands among the fields of the East Neuk near Pittenweem, its oldest tower 14th-century and the rest a crow-stepped house of the 1500s and 1600s, a near ruin when the Lorimer family took the lease in 1878. Professor James Lorimer restored it as a summer home, his son Robert became a great architect and his grandson Hew a sculptor, and their tastes fill the rooms with painted panelling and, in the library, one of the oldest ornamental plaster ceilings in Scotland. Hew Lorimer's studio in the stables is kept as he left it, and the walled garden is planted in the Arts and Crafts style with old roses, herbs and fruit, all cared for by the National Trust for Scotland. Reviewers praise the hourly guided tours and the tearoom's cakes. Tips from visitors: tours run hourly, so fill a wait in the garden and meadow; sat navs go astray on the postcode, so follow the brown signs; and dogs are welcome on leads outside.