May 2025

 We have been learning about the history of St Serfs thanks to a variety of local sources and internet searches. Here’s what we have found out so far:

St Serfs originally went by the name of Westwood. Westwood was built in around 1865 for Mr Harry Walker. The home was designed by a local architect Andrew Heiton of Perth. The home when originally built, was a comfortable family mansion of 16 bedrooms. Harry Walker was a Jute Barron who owned and operated two jute mills in Dundee, Dura works and later Caldrum works. Harry moved to Newport-on-Tay with his wife and three children, residing in Seafield house and Woodmuir before moving into Westwood upon completion of the home being build. Harry and his family lived in Westwood for over 20 years but sadly his wife Abigail passed away in 1876 and Harry then passed away shortly after in 1889. 

This was then when his son, James took over the property. James resided in Westwood until 1915 where he then passed the home over to John Campbell Low who was also a Jute Barron. In 1946, John kindly passed on the house to the Scottish Episcopal church and this is when the home became St Serfs. When St Serfs first became a care home it was a comfortable 16 bed home, however often the bedrooms were at double occupancy even if the other resident was a complete stranger! There were a lot of structural differences back then to what we know St Serfs to be now. Rooms 1&2 were one big room and a lot of rooms on the top floor of the main house were also large rooms that have been split into multiple rooms.

When chatting with a former staff member from the 80s, we discovered that the chapel and extension were built and opened around 1985, turning the home into the 24 bed home we have now! Around 2010 the home was bought over by Jenny and Fergus Thain who are a family ran company called Acre Care Homes. They have brought the home into a fresh modern standard and it certainly feels like a big family here. We still have a lot of the original structures inside and out, making our home a beautiful place to live and visit!

I think we can all agree the history of the home is really interesting and makes the home feel very special. If you have any information you can add, or indeed any corrections, please do get in touch with us as we’d love to keep building our history. Thank you.