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Site of a castle, manor or fortified house. The site of the House of Quich/Castle of Quiech is on a promontory, precipitous rock overhanging the River South Esk and bounded on both east and west by fast flowing streams. It was formerly the manor house of the Barony of Kinalty and a residence of the Earls of Buchan. The castle/house is attested in the 16th century, but was ruinous in 1744. The OSA (1790s) notes that one wall of the chapel, 'neatly built with hewn stones' had been recently removed and seems to imply that the cottage is actually on the site of the associated chapel. Quantities of bones were found about 1812 at the angle of the woods which skirt the White and Black Burns and meet near the castle. By 1853 nothing remained except what was built into the walls of the cottage which occupied the site, including a lintel dated '1686'. Jervise noted, in 1853, 'a fountain' dedicated to St Colm near the chapel site but nothing was known of this in 1862 although a spring is noted in a steep bank east of Shielhill Bridge at NO 426 580. When visited by the OS in 1958 and 1977 no remains of this castle were seen. The remains of a cottage at Shielhill were examined in 1958, but apart from containing the window lintel with the date '1686' built into the west wall, no castellated structure was seen. The cottage may however have been built from the stones of the castle. In 1977 the only cottage on the site was ruinous and no dated lintel was seen, however, it may have been built into the wall of the cottage that stood at NO 4267 5804 and was demolished to make way for the new road bridge built in 1973. In 2003 A Dick undertook a trial excavation following a landslip which left the gable end of the remaining cottage only 1m from the edge above the river. The cottage itself was noted to have built into its walls and also lying amongst the fallen rubble architectural fragments, mainly of doorways and windows, from an earlier higher status building (or possibly from the 'chapel') from which the last stones were reported to have been removed shortly before 1797). The excavations have shown that, despite extensive disturbance by gardening activity and animal burrowing, some evidence of earlier structures has survived. The wall of the cottage itself appears to have been partially built over an earlier, broader wall. Finds include 15th-century pottery
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Historic Environment Records (HER) 
Angus
HER -
NO45NW0002 - SHIELHILL BRIDGE