Balvaird Castle
Balvaird Castle is the ruin of a residential tower with an L-shaped floor plan in the Scottish county of Perthshire (now the administrative unit of Perth and Kinross ).
Surname
The name Balvaird is derived from the Scottish Gaelic Baile a 'Bhàird (German: city of the bard ).
history
The particularly beautiful and completely preserved example of a Scottish residential tower was built around 1500 for Sir Andrew Murray , the younger son of the Murray family from Tullibardine . He had acquired the Balvaird lands through his marriage to the heiress Margaret Barclay , a member of a wealthy family. It is believed that Balvaird Castle was built on former Barclay family land. Extensive remains of earthwork fortifications around the castle are probably remains of an earlier defensive system.
Over the years the castle has been expanded and changed. A gatehouse was added in 1567. A bailey was built outside the main gate; it probably contained stables and external defenses. A garden was laid out in another courtyard in the south, and a much larger, fenced-in area in the northeast was turned into an orchard or "Pleasance". The buildings around the actual residential tower are now ruins.
The family lived in the tower block until they inherited the Earldom of Mansfield in 1658 and moved to the more comfortable Scone Palace near Perth . After this move, the castle was still inhabited, but no longer by the Murray family. Later farm workers were probably housed there.
Historic Scotland now maintains the residential tower and has carried out some excavations there in recent years. The castle grounds are open to the public all year round, and the residential tower itself can only be visited a few days a year.
description
The red sandstone built Balvaird Castle is a specialty among the Scottish castles of this time, because it shows particularly finely worked architectural details. These are e.g. B. Consoles in the form of hewn heads that support the corners of the wall, an open fireplace, a finely designed closet in the hall on the 1st floor and a Caphouse above the stairs in the form of a small residential tower. It is believed that some or all of these hewn stone structures were brought to Balvaird Castle from an earlier sacred structure and reused.
Balvaird Castle is listed as a Scheduled Monument .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Listed Building - Entry . In: Historic Scotland .
- ^ Peter Chalmers: Historical and Statistical Account of Dunfermline . W. Blackwood and Sons, 1859.
- ↑ Balvaird Castle - Hilltop Lookout . Scotland.com. Retrieved February 23, 2017.
Web links
- Scheduled Monument - entry . In: Historic Scotland .
- Excavations at Balvaird Castle . Archeology Data Service.
- Balvaird Castle . Dark Isle.
Coordinates: 56 ° 17 ′ 20 " N , 3 ° 20 ′ 34.1" W.