Field Visit
Date August 1989
Event ID 1102835
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1102835
Megginch Castle is a fortified house of late 16th-century date which has been subsequently enlarged and remodelled on several occasions. It consists of a main block of three principal storeys with, at ground-floor level, a kitchen and two cellars (both vaulted), and, at first-floor level, a hall and chamber. A wing containing a scale-and-plait stair is stepped out from the SW angle of the block (the entrance set in the SE re-entrant angle), while a newel-service-stair, facilitating access both probably from outside and the kitchen, is incorporated in a semicircular tower, which is extruded from the N wall of the block and corbelled square at the wall-head to accommodate a caphouse; rounds are provided at the NW and NE angles of the block.
Over a third-floor window at the E end of the S wall there is a weathered lintel which is said to have been inscribed PETRVS HAY AEDIFICIVM EXSTRVXIT AN: 1575.
A lecturn dial-head bearing the monogram initials of Peter Hay and Mary Scrimgeour, his wife (married 1627), is set in an hororary to the W of the house; a perpendicular dial is in re-use in the walled garden (NO22SW 1.03).
In 1491/2 Megginch was the property of the Hays of Leys. Peter Hay of Megginch, Chamberlain of the monastery of Scone, inherited the estate in 1565. In 1664 the estate was sold to the Drummonds.
Visited by RCAHMS (IMS) August 1989.
J B Paul 1906; J B Paul 1908; Reg Mag Sig.
