Perth and Kinross Council’s common good fund agreed to look at the long-term future use of a poet’s house which has suffered recent weather damage.
William Soutar House on Wilson Street, Craigie, is a B-listed building which was gifted to the local authority in 1958.
It was the home of William Soutar until his death of tuberculosis in October 1943.
Soutar had debilitating ankylosing spondylitis, which led to him being confined to bed in 1930 in a specially-extended lower floor room of the property. It was decreed that this floor later be made available at reasonabletimes to be viewed by visitors and that the portrait of the writer should remain hanging where he left it.
Any contravention of the conditions would lead to the house returning to the family beneficiaries of the trust.
The Friends of William Soutar and Scots Language Centre have both since used the house.
Described as “an important cultural asset” by John Fyffe, Perth and Kinross Council’s executive director of education and children’s services, members of the Perth common good fund committee agreed to consider its long-term use.
