In 1586 John Lindsay, Lord Menmuir (1552-98), purchased Balcarres, Balneill, Pitcorthie and other lands in Fife. These lands were united into a free barony in 1592 and in 1595 Lindsay built a house at Balcarres, which he made his principal residence. This comprised a south addition to a pre-existing house, built in 1511 by Sir John Stirling of Keir (Gifford 1992, p.80). John, the second son of the 9th Earl of Crawford, was educated on the continent along with his elder brother David, later Lord Edzell. A successful lawyer with financial aptitude, John came to exert considerable political influence, becoming a member of the privy council in 1589, a manager of the Queen's revenue in 1591 and, due to his skills in discovering precious metals, he was appointed by James VI as master of minerals for life. This enabled him to prospect for gold on Crawford Muir, a venture which failed. Both he and David were keen agricultural improvers exchanging elm seed, hollies and in one documented instance, a thousand birches for planting on their lands.
Lindsay's second son David (d.1641) was created 1st Lord Balcarres in 1633. With a great interest in alchemy and the sciences, he corresponded with Drummond of Hawthornden (q.v. Inventory: Supplementary Volume Lothians, p.106-13) and formed the basis of a considerable library. This included collections of state papers and other documents, presented in 1712 to the Advocates' Library by Colin, 3rd Earl of Balcarres. Lord Balcarres was succeeded by his eldest son Alexander, (1618-59) created 1st Earl of Balcarres and hereditary governor of Edinburgh Castle in 1651. A supporter of King Charles, he sold his silver plate and mortgaged his estates for £6,000 to raise money for his cause. After the King's defeat at Worcester he settled with his family in St Andrews. Following the Glencairn rising he left for France and, while in exile, the Balcarres estate was sequestered. He died in Breda in 1659, and was buried at Balcarres in 1668.
Charles Lindsay, 2nd Earl of Balcarres, died in exile, aged twelve and was succeeded, in 1662, by his brother, aged ten, Colin Lindsay, 3rd Earl of Balcarres (1652-1722). A supporter of James VII, he was seized and imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle; following his release he settled in 1693 in Utrecht, returning impoverished to Scotland in 1700. He was appointed to the Privy Council in 1705. Following the 1715 rising he was banished to Balcarres where he founded Colinsburgh, in the south of his estate, supposedly to resettle soldiers from his regiment. The regular shelterbelts structuring the landscape may have been set out at this time.
James Lindsay, 5th Earl of Balcarres (d.1768) succeeded in 1736. Following an active military career in America and in Marlborough's campaigns including Dettingen, he retired to Balcarres, where he undertook agricultural improvements. Alexander Lindsay, 6th Earl of Balcarres (1752-1825) also had a military career. Becoming a peer in 1784, he was a major supporter of the bill for the restoration of the forfeited estates. He sold Balcarres, in 1791, to Robert Lindsay (d.1836), his younger brother who had made a fortune in the West Indies. Robert enlarged the existing house 'with a stolid Georgian extension with a broad bow on the south front' (Gifford 1992, p.80), built the Gothic folly on Balcarres Craig, 1813, and made the designed landscape informal in character. Thereafter, in 1839-43, General James Lindsay (d.1855) commissioned William Burn to enlarge Balcarres. An account of the gardens in 1834, mentions the newly laid-out flower garden:
'a piece of splendid workmanship, independently of the plants with which it is adorned. Its upper half is in grass, with neatly cut figures, with some large Irish yews judiciously disposed over the surface. The figures in the other half are formed with box, and the spaces are gravelled…There are interspersed over the garden low seats of China ware, chiefly blue, but of various shades and forms, which add greatly to the beauty of the scene. On the north is situated a new substantially built green-house, containing many precious gems, with a small piece of rockwork planted with the finer sort of rock plants…' (Smith 1834, pp.530-1).
James' son, Sir Coutts, commissioned further additions by David Bryce 1863-7. Bryce collaborated in the design of the garden terraces with the builder Robert Adamson, who also rebuilt some of the garden walls at Balcaskie in 1836-7 (Gifford 1992, p.86; q.v. Inventory, Volume 4, pp.354-9). Sir Coutts Lindsay seems to have been responsible for the layout of the Lower Terrace, with the architect Jesse Hall, which consisted of four parterres, three of them from designs in Les Jardins du Roi de Pologne.
In 1886, the 4,672 acre estate was sold to Ludovic Lindsay, 26th Earl of Crawford and 9th of Balcarres, thus returning to the senior branch of the family. The parkland was extended and Sir Robert Lorimer was commissioned to design the North Lodge and estate office. Since 1900 the main change in the parkland layout has been the closure of the south drive, replaced by a new north drive. The south-facing terraced gardens have been described as 'second only in Scotland to those of Drummond Castle. Their character is truly magnificent, and they make, with double and single descents, a noble approach to the quaint and beautiful box garden and the splendid circle and enclosing hedged rectangle.' (Country Life 1902, p.184). Following a fire which destroyed some of Pitcorthie House, a new holiday home integrating its remains into the new structure was built by Lord Balneil, the Earl of Crawford and Balcarres heir. It is set in the mature parkland at Pitcorthie. (Gifford 1992, p.342). A standing stone with cup-markings and other motifs, stands in a field to the east of the Pitcorthie park, outside the Inventory designed landscape.