Skulferatu #67 - Newbyres Castle, Gorebridge, Midlothian

There are many castles in Scotland that are now not much more than a few stones.  Newbyres Castle is one of these.  There is not much left of it now, and its glory days are long gone.  It is now no more than two sides of a low wall and a bramble covered mound standing in a small wildlife garden by the village of Gorebridge.  However, back in its heyday the castle was a substantial and rather picturesque tower house. 

 

The rather unimpressive remains of Newbyres Castle

 

Part of the outside walls of Newbyres castle

 

Part of the outside walls of Newbyres Castle

 

This bramble covered mound covers the area where the castle once stood

 

Newbyres Castle was built in the mid-16^th Century for Michael Borthwick of Glengelt.  He had acquired the land in 1543 from James Haswell, the Abbot of the abbey at Newbattle.  The castle was built as an L shaped tower with a courtyard around it.  It had a vaulted ground floor and numerous gun loops on the upper floors.  From his new, fortified home, Borthwick oversaw his coal mining operations in the area. 

 

In 1624 the castle was sold to Sir James Dundas of Arniston, who was the Governor of Berwick.  After his death, the house became the main residence of his widow Mary Hume, Lady Arniston.  She had a reputation locally as a very hospitable host and on one occasion a guest of hers was prosecuted for drunkenness after being a bit rowdy and potty mouthed while making his way home.  The charge against him was later found ‘Not Proven’.  Nowadays, we might look back at the goings on in Newbyres Castle and see it as a bit of a ‘party house’.  The 17^th Century equivalent of the house on the street that at weekends always has music pounding out until the early hours of the morning with lots of inebriated people coming and going.

 

A sketch of Newbyres Castle as it would have been in its heyday

 

A sketch of the ruins of Newbyres Castle from The Arniston Memoirs

 

A sketch of the ruins of the castle circa 1879

 

At some point the castle was abandoned as a home and was left to decay and crumble away.  A large part of the tower, including the staircase collapsed in 1881.  In 1963 most of the remaining walls were demolished by Midlothian Council due to fears for public safety.

 

On a walk that took me through Gorebridge, I stopped off at the remains of the castle.  I walked to the top of the pile of overgrown rubble and wondered if I zoomed back to a few hundred years ago, what room I’d be standing in, and who would be there?  Maybe I’d bump into Lady Arniston, and she would offer me a nip of something nice to drink.  On a cold day like today, it would be most welcome.

 

I left a Skulferatu in a gap in the remaining chunk of the castle walls.

 

Skulferatu #67

 

Skulferatu #67 in a gap in the castle walls

 

Skulferatu #67 in a gap in the castle walls

 

Skulferatu #67 in a gap in the castle walls

 

Map showing location of Skulferatu #67

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are -

 

Latitude 55.84185

Longitude -3.048500

 

I used the following sources for information on the castle –

 

The Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland from the Twelfth to the Eighteenth Century

Volume Three

By David MacGibbon and Thomas Ross

1889

(Sketches – Fig. 477 & Fig. 478)

 

Newbyres Castle: The Story So Far

https://gorebridge.org.uk/heritage/newbyres-castle-the-story-so-far/

 

The Arniston Memoirs, Three Centuries of a Scottish House, 1571-1838

By George W T Omond

1887

(Sketch of Newbyres Tower)

 

Public Information Board at Site

 

Skulferatu #61 - Craiglockhart Castle, Glenlockhart Road, Edinburgh

It was one of those days that promises to be warm but ends up freezing your ears off.  I found this out as I went for a stroll around the slippery and sludgy mud paths of Craiglockhart Hill.  The higher up I got, the more my ears stung with the cold breeze.  If only I’d thought to bring a hat with me, just in case.  Coming down off the hill I made my way over to the grounds of Napier University and the ruins of Craiglockhart Castle.

 

The ruins of Craiglockhart Castle

 

The doorway to the castle

 

The roof of the castle – overgrown with vegetation

 

The ruins of Craiglockhart Castle

 

Some castles are just ruins, others are completely f*cked.  Craiglockhart Castle is one of the latter.  Not much remains of the castle now, it is just a crumbling square of stone walls with some vegetation growing out of it.  To be honest, it wasn’t really ever much of a castle, but was more just a small, four storey tower house with pretentions.  Now only the first storey and part of the second storey remain.

 

The ruins of Craiglockhart Castle

 

The ruins of Craiglockhart Castle

 

The ruins of Craiglockhart Castle

 

The ruins of Craiglockhart Castle

 

Not much is known about the history of the castle, and theories about it are that it was either built for the Kincaid family in the 12^th Century or in the 15^th Century for the Lockharts of Lee.  Nobody really knows and its story is now lost in the mists of time.  I’m sure many interesting things happened here, intrigues, love affairs, scandals, and deaths.  Maybe it was even the site of the first contact between man and traveller from outer space, but we will never know, as all the memories of this building are now gone.  Gone with those who once lived here.  Gone and forgotten.

 

And on that cheery note, I left the Skulferatu that accompanied me on my walk in one of the many thousands of gaps and holes in the crumbling walls of the castle.

 

Skulferatu #61

 

Skulferatu #61 in a gap in the castle walls

 

Skulferatu #61 in a gap in the castle walls

 

Map showing location of Skulferatu #61

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 55.919290

Longitude -3.238320

 

I used the following sources for information on Craiglockhart Castle –

 

Canmore

Craiglockhart Castle | Canmore

 

Gazetteer for Scotland

Craiglockhart Castle: Overview of Craiglockhart Castle (scottish-places.info)

 

The Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland from the Twelfth to the Eighteenth Century

Volume Three

By David MacGibbon and Thomas Ross

1887

 

 

 

Skulferatu #47 - Seafield Tower, Kirkcaldy, Fife

 

The walk along the Fife Coastal Path, from Kinghorn to Seafield Tower, takes you up and down a narrow trail and past some spectacular scenery of jagged rocks and crashing waves.  There are lots of tiny coves and rocky pits and hollows to explore, and on a calm day you can see colonies of seals sunning themselves on the rocks exposed at low tide.

 

Seafield Tower as seen from rocks by the Forth

 

View of ruins of Seafield Tower from Fife Coastal Path

 

The ruins of Seafield Tower sit on the Fife coast between Kinghorn and Kirkcaldy.  It was built in the early to mid-sixteenth century on land that had been granted by King James II to Richard Multrare (Moultrie) in 1443.  It remained in the Moultrie family for several generations.  In 1631 the tower was sold by Robert Moultrie to James Law, the Archbishop of Glasgow for 19,700 marks (£1,095).  After the Archbishop’s death the tower went through several other owners before finally being abandoned and left to fall into ruin.  

A sketch of Seafield Tower as it was circa 1887

It is thought that the ruin was used as a smugglers den for a number of years.  It was noted by David MacGibbon and Thomas Ross when they visited the tower in the late 1880s that smugglers seemed to have made alterations to the building. 

 

Seafield Tower as seen from the beach below

 

The ruins of Seafield Tower standing on a rocky outcrop

 

The ruins of Seafield Tower

 

The ruins of Seafield Tower

 

The Rev. James Taylor mentions the tower in his book ‘Historical Antiquities of Fife’.  He, however, felt it lacked any historical gravitas and wrote - ‘Passing onwards and eastwards, we come to the…tower of Seafield.  It is built upon a rocky ledge, which the waves wash, and has the broad Firth as its lawn.  Prominent for situation, the eye often turns to it, and the expectation is awakened, as if it ought to be the scene of something memorable.  But no legend of romance, no fact of history, no popular tradition, attaches to it.  It is a ruined tower by the sea and nothing more.’

 

View of the ruins of Seafield Tower looking on to the Forth

 

Interior walls of Seafield Tower

 

View out over the Forth through doorway created in tower wall

 

It would appear that the tower originally consisted of five storeys and was part of an L shape castle constructed from local red sandstone and surrounded by a wall on the landward side.  It is likely that it followed the pattern of other castles in this area with storage on the ground floor, the Great Hall on the level above that and then the upper levels all being given over to accommodation.  Much of the building has now gone, with part of the tower collapsing in a storm in 2013.

 

I left the Skulferatu that accompanied me on today’s walk in a gap in a wall inside the ruins of the tower.

 

Skulferatu #47

 

Skulferatu #47 in a gap in the wall of the tower

 

Map showing the location of Skulferatu #47

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 56.084120

Longitude -3.159048

 

I used the following sources for information on Seafield Tower –

 

The Moultries

South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine, Vol 5

1904

 

John Gray Centre – Research Guide – Old Scottish Money

Research Guides - Money

 

The Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland from the Twelfth to the Eighteenth Century

Volume Three

By David MacGibbon and Thomas Ross

1887

 

Historical Antiquities of Fife, Chiefly Ecclesiastical, Connected with Some of its Districts

Volume Two

Rev. James W. Taylor

1875

 

The Scotsman – 8 Lesser-known castles of Scotland

11 September 2018

8 lesser-known castles of Scotland | The Scotsman

 

 

Skulferatu #29 - Hound Point Battery, Dalmeny Estate, South Queensferry

 

On a sunny, but bitterly cold April morning I took a walk from Cramond, through Dalmeny Estate, to South Queensferry.  Following Cycle Route 76, I walked through the top of the estate and round and down to Hound Point.  By Fishery Cottage, I cut up the hill and through the woods to the concrete remains of the Hound Point Battery, an old First World War coastal defences site.  There I had a good look about as the trees all around swayed and creaked in the wind.

 

Hill view of gun emplacement at Hound Point Battery

 

Remains of the magazine building

Gun emplacement – Hound Point Battery

 

Gun emplacement – Hound Point Battery

 

Gun emplacement – Hound Point Battery

 

Hound point Battery was part of a defensive system built along the coast of the UK that stretched from Shetland to Cornwall.  Building work began on the Battery before the start of World War One and it was operational by 1914.  The Battery consisted of two gun emplacements at the top of the hill overlooking the Firth of Forth, and a magazine building to the rear and slightly further down the hill.  While it was operational the perimeter of the Battery would have been surrounded by blockhouses and a barbed wire fence.  When it was armed in 1914 the Battery had two BL 6-inch Mk VII guns, however these were removed in 1915 and transferred to another battery at Leith Docks.  The guns were then replaced in 1916 with two 12 pounder Quick Firing Naval 18cwt guns.  These were dismounted and removed in 1922.

 

In September 1914, the Battery at Hound Point opened fire on a suspected enemy submarine out in the Firth of Forth.  However, one of the shells fired ricocheted off the water and landed near to the Earl of Moray’s residence at Donibristle House in Dalgety Bay.  Luckily, it didn’t cause much damage other than ploughing up the lawn in front of the house.  The enemy submarine was eventually sunk by a gunner based out on Inchgarvie Island.

 

The Battery is now in a state of disrepair and is badly vandalised and crumbling away, much like most of the old coastal defences.  However, around the old gun emplacements there are some good views, through the trees, over the Forth.  The sort of views that make you realise why they built the Battery where they did.

 

I left the Skulferatu that accompanied me on today’s walk in the hollow of a tree growing out from one of the gun emplacements.

 

Skulferatu #29

Skulferatu #29 in tree hollow at Hound Point Battery

 

Map showing location of Skulferatu #29

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are –

 

Latitude 55.999295

Longitude -3.351049

I used the following sources for information on Hound Point Battery -

 

Linlithgowshire Gazette – Friday, September 18, 1914

 

Overland China Mail – No 2386, October 31, 1914

 

Canmore – Forth Defences, Inner, Hound Point Battery

Canmore - Forth Defences, Inner, Hound Point Battery

 

Ancient Monuments UK

ancientmonuments.uk - Hound Point Battery, City of Edinburgh

Article and photographs are copyright of © Kevin Nosferatu, unless otherwise specified.

Skulferatu #26 - Saltcoats Castle, Gullane, East Lothian

When I go cycling from Edinburgh to North Berwick, I like to take the coastal road and enjoy the scenic route.  Just before I reach Gullane, I turn off from the road and take the bumpy path along the John Muir Way and cut down to the rather spectacular ruin of Saltcoats Castle.  On a sunny day it’s relaxing just to sit in the castle grounds, rehydrate and take in the great view.

 

Saltcoats Castle with ruined cottage and outbuildings

 

Tower of Saltcoats Castle seen through overgrown outer area of the castle

 

The history of this rather marvellous ruin starts with a legend of daring and bravery, or the needless slaughter of a wild animal, depending on your point of view.  The story goes something like this…

 

…back in the mists of time, when the lands that now make up East Lothian were sparsely populated and thick with forest and wild beasts, there was a huge, wild boar that terrorised the area.     This beast was enraged by anybody it saw on its territory and had chased, gouged and maimed a dozen or so people.  Soon it got to the stage where those in the villages were terrified of travelling to market, the peasants working the fields were terrified as they worked, the landlords in their stately homes were terrified of walking outside in their gardens and those travelling from Edinburgh towards England took a long route round to avoid the area.  The King, on learning what was going on, offered a large reward to anyone who could kill the boar and rid the land of its menace.  Many tried and died in their attempts.  The boar always seemed to be one step ahead of them and ambushed many a brave hunter, slicing through their weak and mortal bodies with sharp tusks that seemed to be made of steel.  Soon the boar was being seen as more than just a beast, it was a demon sent from Hell or a punishment from God.  The churches rang out their bells and the holy prayed in hope that the good Lord would end their torment.  But he didn’t.

 

Then along came a young man from the Livington family.  His family had fallen on hard times and he had decided that to improve their lot he would take on the challenge of killing the boar.  First of all, he set about preparing for the task and had a special glove made of thick leather.  The inside of this glove was heavily padded with down.  He also had a steel helmet, body armour and a sword made for the task.  Expensive though this was, he persuaded the craftsmen who made the pieces for him that he would pay them when he had killed the boar.  Such was his self confidence in completing this task that they all agreed to this and he was soon ready to go on the hunt for the deadly beast.

 

On a summer’s morning young Livington set off out into the forest.  As he went, he would call out every so often in order to attract the boar.  However, it was almost as if the beast could sense him and his purpose, and for hours Livington walked without seeing any sign of it.  Growing weary from walking, Livington stopped near a stream and drank from it.  He sat by it for a while and decided to give up for the day and to start his hunt again the next morning.  As he rose to make his way back out of the forest, he heard something crashing through the undergrowth.  It drew nearer and nearer.  Livington drew his sword and readied himself.  With a roar the boar burst through the undergrowth to where Livington stood.  The creature was huge with tusks like sabres and eyes that glowed red like the hot coals of a fire.  For a moment it stood still staring at Livington, then it stamped at the ground, snarled, and rushed at him with tusks out.  Like a matador, Livington spun to the side and the boar charged past.  It came to a skidding halt and turned again to face him.  It’s eyes burning with anger and hate it let out a roar and charged at him.  Livington once more sidestepped the boar as it reached him, howling with frustrated rage it turned and came at him again.  As it was almost on top of him Livington thrust his gloved arm down into its mouth.  The shock of this caused the beast to stumble and fall, taking both it and Livington to the ground.  The beast, unable to move its head enough to gouge Livington with its tusks, kicked out at him, catching him several times about the body and denting the armour he wore.  In this onslaught Livington almost lost grip of his sword, but just managing to keep hold of it he thrust it up and through the beast’s heart.  The beast let out a groan, almost human, then sighing it died by Livington’s side.  Exhausted, Livington lay by it and prayed a prayer of thanks to the Almighty Lord above.

 

A group of five woodsmen, had bravely ventured that day into the forest to chop wood, and had heard the commotion.  Cautiously they approached to see what was going on and saw Livington lying beside the body of the boar.  Thinking that he must have died in the fight, they went over to offer prayers for him.  On seeing that he was alive and suffering from no fatal wounds, they helped the exhausted man to his feet.  They then cut and stripped a large branch and tied the body of the boar to this.  Four of the woodsmen carried it out, while one carried Livington on his shoulders.  As they walked out through the forest, they came across a den of six squealing little piglets. The six little piglets mama boar had been protecting from those who encroached on her territory.  These were gathered up, placed in a sack, and handed to Livington.

 

On hearing that the boar was dead, villagers from all around came out in celebration.  That night Livington and the villagers, from landlord to peasant, all feasted on suckling pig and wild boar sausages, black pudding, and roast pork.  All washed down with local ales and fine wines imported from afar. 

 

A few days later the King heard that the boar had been killed.  For Livington’s act of bravery and ridding the land of the terrible beast the King granted him the lands from Gullane Point to North Berwick Law.  It was on the land acquired by Livington, near to Gullane, that Saltcoats Castle was built.

 

Up until the 1790s the helmet said to be worn by Livington when he slayed the boar hung in the church at Dirleton in East Lothian.  When the church was being repaired the helmet was removed for safekeeping and was lost.

 

At the mouth of the Peffer there is a small stream that goes by the name of Livington’s Ford.  It is here that Livington supposedly slew the wild boar. 

 

Anyway, let’s get back to the castle…the name of Saltcoats Castle is thought to come from the fact that it stands on ground that was in ancient times a salt marsh.  The castle is a Sixteenth Century courtyard castle that rose to a height of three storeys.  It was enclosed by a wall and in the grounds, there would have been an extensive garden and orchard.  There was also at one time a bowling green to the east of the castle, though all signs of this have been lost as it has been ploughed over numerous times and become part of the surrounding fields.

 

The castle was built in around 1590 for Patrick Livington and his wife Margaret Fettis of Fawside.  In the early 1700s the castle and estate were acquired by the Hamilton family when James Hamilton of Pencaitland married ‘the heiress of Saltcoats’, Margaret Menzies.  The castle was inhabited until around the late 1790s, the last tenant being a Mrs Carmichael, who died there.  It was then left uninhabited for several years.  Around 1810 much of the stonework was removed to build farm steadings and walls.  The ruined cottage which stands at the side of the castle was built around this time and on its front wall there is a panel taken from the castle with the coat of arms of Patrick Livington carved into it.

 

Tower of Saltcoats Castle

Sketch of Saltcoats Castle from ‘The Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland’ - 1887

Side view of castle ruins and tower

 

Side view of castle tower

 

View of castle and ruins of farm steadings

 

Saltcoats Castle has now been designated as a scheduled monument.

 

The Skulferatu that accompanied me today was left on a ledge above the keyhole window on the tower.

 

Skulferatu #26

 

Spot the Skulferatu 

 

Close up of Skulferatu #26 on window ledge

 

Map showing location of Skulferatu #26

 

The coordinates for the location of the Skulferatu are:

 

Latitude 56.026982

Longitude -2.827307

 

 

I used the following sources for information on the castle –

 

The Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland from the Twelfth to the Eighteenth Century

Volume Four

By David MacGibbon and Thomas Ross

1887

 

Lamp of Lothian or the History of Haddington form the earliest times to 1844

by James Miller

1900

 

St Baldred of the Bass and Other Poems

By James Miller

Oliver and Boyd

1824

 

Wikipedia – Saltcoats Castle

Saltcoats Castle - Wikipedia

 

Canmore – Saltcoats Castle

Canmore - Saltcoats Castle, Gullane

 

 

Article and photographs are copyright of © Kevin Nosferatu, unless otherwise specified.