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Remains of castle. A large tower house, L-plan, originally called Craig of Inverugie. The whole of the ground floor was vaulted but the arches have fallen except that of the southwest chamber, which is still entire. Opposite the entrance door, in the thickness of the north wall, a straight flight of stairs led up to the first floor, where it stopped. There was a circular stair to the upper floors in the thickness of the wall at the re-entrant angle, rising above wall-head as a circular turret. Rubble-built with dressed quoins, dressed stones of all openings except cross-arrowlets were robbed prior to 1839. The footings of a curtain wall are traceable to the south and east of the tower on the inner lip of the rock-cut moat, circa 10m wide by 3m deep at the east end. No buildings remain within the barmekin. Regularly disposed round all its sides at ground level is an array of loops in the form of long slits with a short crosslet slit near the top and a circular aperture at the bottom. The internal embrasures are wide, with jambs deeply slotted at the outer end. In these slots the wooden cills were housed which held the spiked gun-mounting (Cruden). Only two of the transverse stone-built dykes across the moat can be seen, but an entrance causeway on the S side is referred to as the third. The broken ground to the W of the moat, described by Macgibbon and Ross, may be defensive, but seems more likely to be surface quarrying, possibly contemporary with the castle. Originally the property of the Cheynes, passed to the Keiths by marriage in mid 14th Century. Still a substantial castle in a spectacular situation.
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Historic Environment Records (HER)