Balcraig Castle

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Balcraig Castle is an Outbound castle on the western slope of the Hatton Hill , about 800 meters south of the village of Newtyle in the Scottish county of Angus . Today nothing can be seen of the building with the exception of a small leveling in the upper left corner of the field in which it once stood. The location of the castle was chosen from a strategic point of view, as one could monitor the route through the Sidlaw Hills from there and it was on a natural crevice.

history

Around 1317 King Robert the Bruce rewarded Sir William Oliphant, Lord of Aberdalgie , with a number of fiefs, e.g. B. Gasknes , Newtyle , Kinpurnie , Auchtertyre , Balcrais , Muirhouse and Hazelhead .

It is not known when exactly Balcraig Castle was built, but it was outdated when the 4th Lord Oliphant built Hatton Castle nearby. The only written mention of Balcraig Castle is in Timothy Pont's map of the area from 1590; at that time the castle was still standing.

Balcraig Castle is thought to be a wooden castle, but on the other hand, some boulders were excavated near the site around 1970. The size of the stones suggests that these were the foundations of a fortress. There is also a journal entry about the explosion of the Newtyle castle. Hatton Castle, which was also in ruins until its restoration in the 1980s, was still standing but had to be repaired on a large scale by its owner. The Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland notes that "the ruins of Hatton Castle and the scanty traces of Balcraig have been recorded separately". Since it is impossible for wooden structures to have survived from 1317 to 1884, the “sparse traces” that could still be seen must have been made of stone.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Balcraig Castle in Canmore . Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historic Monuments of Scotland. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  2. ↑ Balcraig . Scotlands Places. ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.scotlandsplaces.gov.uk
  3. ^ Newtyle Village website. ( Memento of the original from September 20, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved February 10, 2017. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.newtylevillage.org.uk
  4. ^ A b Joseph Anderson: The Oliphants in Scotland .
  5. ↑ James Balfour Paul (Editor): The Scots Peerage, Founded on Wood's Edition of Sir Robert Douglas's Peerage of Scotland . Volume VI. David Douglas, Edinburgh 1909. p. 534.
  6. ^ Timothy Pont: Lower Angus and Perthshire east of the Tay . Map No. 26. 1580s or 1590s. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  7. ^ David MacGibbon, Thomas Ross: The castellated and domestic architecture of Scotland, from the twelfth to the eighteenth century . Volume 4. D. Douglas, Edinburgh 1892. p. 50. Retrieved February 10, 2017.
  8. ^ The Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland . (1884). Thomas C. Jack, Grange Publishing Works, London and Glasgow 1884. Retrieved February 10, 2017.

Coordinates: 56 ° 33 ′ 7.9 "  N , 3 ° 7 ′ 51.6"  W.