Ballone Castle

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Ballone Castle
View from the northwest (2011)

View from the northwest (2011)

Alternative name (s): Castle Tarbat, Castlehaven
Creation time : Second half of the 16th century
Castle type : Niederungsburg
Conservation status: Rebuilt, inhabited
Place: Tarbat
Geographical location 57 ° 49 '49 "  N , 3 ° 48' 19"  W Coordinates: 57 ° 49 '49 "  N , 3 ° 48' 19"  W.
Height: 20  m ASL
Ballone Castle (Scotland)
Ballone Castle
View from the southwest (2011)
View with garden wall (2008)
View from the west (1887)
View from the east (1887)
Original floor plan

Ballone Castle , also known as Balone Castle in older publications , is a castle on the Tarbat Peninsula on the east coast of the Scottish Highlands . The complex stood empty and left to decay for around three hundred years before it was restored and prepared for residential use from the mid-1990s.

location

The castle stands on the east coast of the Tarbat Peninsula, just a few meters from the cliffs that tower over the Moray Firth by about 20 meters. The closest places are Rockfield , about a kilometer to the southwest and Portmahomack , about one and a half kilometers to the northwest. Politically, Ballone Castle today belongs to the Community Council Area Tarbat and thus to the Council Area Highland , historically to the Parish Tarbat and the counties of Cromartyshire and later to Ross and Cromarty .

architecture

The castle is a good example of the so-called Z-plan architecture. This means that a square main building is flanked at two diagonally opposite corners by a tower each. In the case of Ballone Castle, the northern one has a round, the southern one a square floor plan, both of which protrude only slightly beyond the rectangular central building. The main building has three floors and a converted attic. Access to the upper floors is through two tour rooms , each with a staircase. Several watch towers on consoles , covered with stone and provided with loopholes , emphasize the fortified character of the castle. Several lower outbuildings are grouped around an adjoining courtyard to the east, including a bakery . A small garden in front of the castle in the south-west is enclosed by a semicircular wall.

history

The castle was probably built in the second half of the 16th century. Members of the Dunbar clan , who had owned land there since 1507, but also one of the Earls of Ross are considered as builders . The complex was first mentioned in a document at the beginning of the 17th century as "the fortalicium" by Easter Tarbat. At that point it was owned by the Dunbars.

In 1623 the castle was acquired by the Mackenzie clan and expanded to include a bakery and a brewery , which subsequently became the seat of the clan's own line . Sir John Mackenzie, 1st Baronet (of Tarbat), died here on September 10, 1654. Just a few years later, the importance of the castle began to decline: in 1656, Sir George Mackenzie, 2nd Baronet and later first Earl of Cromartie , acquired it from a sideline of the Munro clan the grounds of Miltown Castle . About 20 kilometers to the south-west and in terms of traffic considerably cheaper than Castle Tarbat, he had a castle built there in the following years, which became the line's new headquarters. The term Tarbat was also transferred to this, initially as New Tarbat . Its successor from 1787 now operates as Tarbat House .

1685 married his son John Mackenzie, 2nd Earl of Cromartie , Elizabeth Gordon, only daughter of Charles, the first Earl of Aboyne . The couple subsequently lived, at least temporarily, at Ballone Castle. In 1693 they went on a trip to Europe, during which the marriage broke up. Presumably as early as 1691, at the latest at this point in time the castle was last inhabited. It was no longer maintained and began to deteriorate from the beginning of the 18th century. The New Statistical Account from 1845 states that the castle was in ruins and has not been inhabited by a respectable family for two hundred years. It should be noted that George Mackenzie, 3rd Earl of Cromartie , lost his title due to his participation in the second Jacobite rebellion in 1746, so the family may have been classified accordingly.

The castle was registered as a Category A Listed Building in March 1971 and has been a listed building ever since.

reconstruction

In 1990 the ruins, of which essentially only the outer walls were left at that time, were acquired by the Stewart couple, originally from Scotland, who had settled in the Spitalfields district of London after studying in Edinburgh and had established themselves there professionally: he as an architect specializing in the renovation of historic buildings or new construction in the historic style, she with the design, manufacture and sale of Scottish handicrafts After several years of restoration , the family was able to move into the castle in 1998.

Ballone Castle presents itself today both externally and internally in its original state, as far as this could be reconstructed, the building services are modern. For the successful restoration, Lachlan Stewart received the Nigel Tranter Memorial Award from the Scottish Castles Association in 2006 .

Since the building is for private residential use, it is usually not open to the public. It is open to viewing on special occasions, such as the Doors Open Days , the Scottish contribution to the European Heritage Days .

Earlier names

In the map created by Timothy Pont between 1583 and 1596 by Tarbat Ness and Easter Ross, the castle is entered as "Cast: Terbart". It was subsequently referred to as Castle Tarbat .

In February 1685 Sir George Mackenzie, 2nd Baronet of Tarbat, was additionally awarded the title of Lord Castlehaven. The name referred to the Castlehaven complex on the north coast of Tarbat , which was long regarded as the ruin of a castle or fortress, but according to current research is regarded as the remains of an Iron Age dun . As a result, the village of Portmahomack was renamed Castlehaven and the name was also used for Tarbat Castle. Both of these did not last: in the case of the long-abandoned castle, the name Ballone Castle, which was previously in use locally, became established in the second half of the 18th century.

literature

Web links

Commons : Ballone Castle  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ for example in the Ordnance Gazetteer from 1901
  2. ^ Map of the Tarbat Community Council Area on the Highland Council website, PDF file, 748 kB
  3. ↑ Castles of Clan Mackenzie on the clan's website, accessed August 8, 2017 (English)
  4. ↑ a b Entry Ballone Castle ( memento of the original from August 15, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the official website of the Doors Open Days, accessed on August 13, 2017 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.doorsopendays.org.uk
  5. ↑ William Fraser: The earls of Cromartie. Their kindred, country, and correspondence. Volume 1, Edinburgh 1876, p. Lxiv (English)
  6. ↑ Garden and Designed Landscape - entry . In: Historic Scotland .
  7. ↑ Listed Building - Entry . In: Historic Scotland .
  8. ↑ William Fraser: The earls of Cromartie. Their kindred, country, and correspondence. Volume 1, Edinburgh 1876, p. Cciv (English)
  9. ^ The new statistical account of Scotland, Vol. XIV , Pt. 2, Edinburgh and London 1845, p. 461. Available online in the Open Library by the side . (English)
  10. ↑ See also this recording from 1979, on Flickr
  11. ↑ Pont's map of Tarbet Ness, Easter Ross on the National Library of Scotland website , accessed August 13, 2017
  12. ↑ Mackenzie, George (1630-1714) . In: Dictionary of National Biography . Volume 35, 1893, pp. 145 ff.
  13. ↑ Entry on Castlehaven  in Canmore, the database of Historic Environment Scotland (English)
  14. ↑ Scheduled Monument - Entry . In: Historic Scotland .
  15. ↑ William Fraser: The earls of Cromartie. Their kindred, country, and correspondence. Volume 2, Edinburgh 1876, p. 426 (English)