Field Visit
Date 23 June 1915
Event ID 1114496
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1114496
Cakemuir Castle.
This structure, a mid-16th-century tower, is distant about 4 miles south-south-east of Pathhead and stands high on the eastern slope of a sheltered and secluded valley formed by the Cakemuir Burn amid the dreary moorlands that rise to the Soutra ridge. The tower is an oblong on plan, measuring externally 30 feet 2 inches from east to west by 24 feet 7 inches from north to south, and has a turret, circled on plan for the greater part of its height, projecting from the north wall to contain the stair. From the west wall there projects an 18th-century wing, which in its turn has been added to within recent years. Below the wall-head the tower contains four storeys, each of one apartment, which are reached by the spacious wheel-stair. The wallhead is surmounted by a parapet, with walk borne on moulded corbels, that butts against the stair-tower, which, at this level, develops to an oblong on plan and terminates in a cap-house with crow-stepped gables. Within the parapet-walk rises a steeply pitched roof covered with slates, beneath which is a garret lit from windows in the east and west gables. These gables are crow-stepped, and in each is a chimney-stalk. In the west gable, on either side of the chimney, is a roofed watch-box with a stone seat for the occupant. These boxes or recesses overlook the country to south and east. The only provision for defence was a series of gun-loops on the fourth floor, which are now built up. The floors are of wood.
The tower seems to have been ruinous when the present family acquired the property, but to-day it is in good repair and is in occupation. The parapet has been restored, and a new roof has been formed at a pitch less steep than the original. The door between the basement and the staircase has a wrought-iron handle and plate of the 17th century.
HERALDIC PANEL. On the outside of the east gable is placed a panel which was removed from above the original entrance. It has a shield bearing Wauchope arms - a chevron between two mullets in chief and a garb in base. Adam Wauchope of Cakemuir is on record in 1565. Pitcairn's Criminal Trials, i, Part iii, p.468.
RCAHMS 1928, visited 23 June 1915.
