| Details |
Remains of a castle. One of the few great stone castles of enclosure to have survived in Scotland from the high point of medieval European castle building, it may have been built on the site of an earlier fortification. Its single enclosing curtain wall forms a fairly regular pentagon with towers at angles and gatehouse at point. The castle as first constructed in the 13th century for Alexander II appears to have been a plain polygonal enclosure. This phase is represented by the coursed rubble of the east, west and south curtains. A chapel constructed in the middle of the century breached the curtain wall in order to achieve a true east-west axis. Excavation around the curtain wall at this point revealed that extra defences were built around the projecting chapel. Subsequently the towers, the ashlar plinth of the north curtain and the gatehouse were added. Important early features of the interior include the archers' slits and prison in the Warden's tower (northeast), the adjacent postern gate and portcullis, the great hall against the north curtain, and the massive donjon or Snow Tower in the northwest. Within the cobbled courtyard there are substantial remains of domestic buildings including hall, the chapel and kitchen. Later additions include the Elphinstone tower, a 16th century tower house at the west end of the hall and the bakehouse complex in the southeast. The castle suffered several sieges and burnings, notably in 1306 when Sir Nigel Bruce (brother of King Robert) held it against the young Prince Edward of Caernarvon. A central point in the great Earldom of Mar, it was restored, besieged again in 1335 by Balliol forces, burnt in 1530, captured by Cromwell in 1654, and became the headquarters of the Earl of Mar's Jacobite rising of 1715, after which it was dismantled. A watching brief carried out by Kirkdale Archaeology in 2014 during installation of nine survey markers recorded no features or finds of archaeological significance. A watching brief was carried out by CFA in April 2018 during installation of new information boards, but no archaeological features or artefacts were recorded. Twenty-two masons' marks, of 16 different masons, have been recorded at the castle by the Masons' Marks Project. A further seven marks, of three masons, were recorded at the Watergate, a well chamber outside the curtain wall reached by what had been a passage leading from the postern gate to the north wall. A photographic survey was carried out in 2022 prior to proposed field entrance formation and maintenance of the field wall and fencing.
|
Historic Environment Records (HER)