Harviestoun

Harviestoun is an estate in Tillicoultry parish, Clackmannanshire, central Scotland. It lies at the base of the Ochil Hills, around 1.5 kilometres east of Tillicoultry and 2 kilometres west of Dollar.

The Harviestoun estate was bought in around 1780 by Edinburgh lawyer John Tait. It was during a visit to Harviestoun in the summer of 1787 that Robert Burns met Charlotte Hamilton, who inspired his poem "Fairest Maid on Devon Banks". A commemorative cairn on the main road marks his visit. Harviestoun Castle was built in 1804 by Craufurd Tait after inheriting the estate from his father in 1800. In 1805 Tait purchased Dollar Glen, including the 15th-century Castle Campbell from the Duke of Argyll. He also constructed a new home farm, coach house and walled garden. Craufurd Tait died in 1832 and was buried in the private family graveyard, now known as Tait's Tomb, located on the north bank of the River Devon midway between Dollar and Tillicoultry at a point originally with romantic views both up and downstream, until this loop of the river was diverted during construction of the Devon Valley Railway in 1869 leaving the graveyard now oddly stranded in the landscape. Craufurd's youngest son Archibald Tait , who was later Archbishop of Canterbury, spent much of his boyhood at Harviestoun.

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