Lauriston Castle (Aberdeenshire)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lauriston Castle
Photo-request.svg
Image wanted BW
Creation time : from the 13th century
Castle type : Höhenburg, spur location
Conservation status: partially rebuilt
Standing position : Scottish royalty
Place: St Cyrus
Geographical location 56 ° 47 '24.3 "  N , 2 ° 23' 35.1"  W Coordinates: 56 ° 47 '24.3 "  N , 2 ° 23' 35.1"  W.
Height: 96  m ASLTemplate: height / unknown reference
Lauriston Castle (Scotland)
Lauriston Castle

Lauriston Castle is a spur castle near St Cyrus in the Scottish county of Aberdeenshire . The castle stands on a cliff about 1.7 km from the North Sea coast. It was once a royal castle and today it is one of the oldest privately owned castles in the region. Historic Scotland has listed Lauriston Castle as a Category C Historic Building.

history

According to legend, the place was a fortress of Giric , Grig or Gregory the Great , one of the last Pictish kings (878-889). The site of the church of Ecclesgreig (French: "Eglise Grig") is nearby and St Cyrus was named after its Latin name Ciricius .

The first charter to mention Lauriston Castle dates back to 1243 and soon the castle developed into a classic Hofburg, which was fiercely fought for in the Scottish Wars of Independence and which was built in 1336 at the behest of King Edward III. Reinforced by England as part of a chain of Plantagenet forts in hopes they would prevent French troops from landing in support of the Scots.

One of the corner towers on the edge of the cliff was integrated into a typical mansion in the 1500s . This house in turn was integrated into a very large Georgian country house in the Palladian style , which was built in 1765-1789.

For nearly 450 years Lauriston Castle was held by the Straton clan , whose coat of arms from 1292 is one of the oldest in Scotland. The eloquent Declaration of Arbroath , the famous letter to Pope John XXII. of 1320, signed by the earls and barons of the nation, with the final signature of Alexander Straton .

Another Straton, the "noble Knicht o 'Lauriston" (German: noble knight of Lauriston), fell in 1411 at the Battle of Harlaw and shortly afterwards his son was involved in the Sheriff's Kettle affair . The Barons of Mearns had complained about the snooty behavior of John Melville of Glenbervie , the Sheriff of Kincardineshire , and the regent of King James I , the Duke of Albany , expressed his exasperation that he did not care if they did "Boiled the lout and ate the broth." A group of barons took this as royal permission, lured Melville to a hunting party, dipped him in a cauldron and, to end the plot, ate the broth.

But the Straton continue to prosper on Lauriston Castle and survived the events of 1534 when, 'David Straton' 'with the Church of payment of the Tenth scolded for salmon fishing. He refused to give every tenth fish to the Abbot of Arbroath and instructed his servants to "throw the tenth fish back into the sea". He said God could catch his own fish. For this evasion of church taxes he was taken to Edinburgh and sentenced to death; he became one of the first Protestant martyrs in Scotland.

In 1695 the Stratons were forced to sell Lauriston Castle. Under the charter for the new owner, Chief Justice Sir James Falconer from Phesdo , the property became its own Burgh of Barony with a free port in Miltonhaven . The name of the baronate was also changed to "Miltonhaven", but storms in the 1790s washed away both the harbor and the village, so Lauriston was called the "drowned barony" (English: "Drown'd Barony"). In the following century, the lands were expanded in the fashionable Picturesque style with waterfalls, walking paths, and a three-acre enclosed garden.

After it was used as barracks for the Royal Air Force in World War II , the country house was demolished and, according to Nigel Tranter, "really bad times" began for the castle .

The Knights' Hall and the dovecote were William and Dorothy Newlands from Lauriston end of the 1980s by the architect Ian Begg restored. The pigeon house received the Glenfiddich Living Scotland Award in 1992 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Listed Building - Entry . In: Historic Scotland .
  2. ^ Duncan Keith: History of Scotland . 1886.
  3. ^ RR Stodart: Scottish Arms . 1881.
  4. ↑ Sir Walter Scott: Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border . 1803/1804.
  5. ^ J. Moffat Scott The Martyrs of Angus and Mearns . 1885.
  6. ↑ KM Brown et al. (Editor): The Records of the Parliaments of Scotland to 1707 . St Andrews, 2007-2009. 1695/5/294. Retrieved November 2, 2017.
  7. ^ A Vision of Britain Through Time . Great Britain Historical GIS Project.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.visionofbritain.org.uk  
  8. ^ Nigel Tranter: The Fortified House in Scotland . Volume 4. 1986.
  9. ^ Duncan Fraser: Portrait of a Parish . 1979.
  10. ↑ Jane Geddes: Deeside and the Mearns, An Illustrated Architectural Guide . Rutland Press (Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland), 2001.

Web links