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Field Visit
Date 25 June 1913
Event ID 1115464
Category Recording
Type Field Visit
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1115464
Hallyards Castle.
The ruin of Hallyards Castle, a mid-17th-century mansion, lies about a mile south of Kirkliston. The site has settled badly through mining, and this movement has already caused large portions of the walls to fall, while leaving others in an exceedingly dangerous state.
The structure is built of rubble with freestone dressings and is oblong on plan, measuring 46 ½ feet from north to south by 23 feet from east to west. Below the wall-head were four storeys, while a garret was contained within the roof. A circular stair-tower is set in the east wall with an internal as well as external projection. The entrance is placed in this tower and leads to the basement past the foot of the spacious wheel-stair which gives access to the upper floors. The entrance has a Renaissance cornice over the moulded architrave and jambs. Two moulded string-courses return across the tower, and a cavetto cornice returns along the lateral walls at wall-head level. The windows are large with back-set margins and splayed jambs. The third floor, which would be coom-ceiled, was lit by dormers placed in the lateral walls. The south-eastern angle is hollowed fora considerable height, but at some little distance below the wall-head it is corbelled out to the square.
The basement floor has been vaulted and contained a kitchen with fireplace, oven, and sink on the south, and cellars to the north. The first floor had two apartments, each having a fireplace with moulded jambs. The joists of the upper floors rested not on a scarcement or on separate corbels but on a continuous moulded corbel-course. These upper floors and the upper portion of the tower contained bedrooms. The main staircase reached to the second floor; a smaller stair led from this level to the floors above.
HISTORICAL NOTE. In 1619 there was a grant to John, Earl of Mar, of the lands of ‘Halyairdis’ with ‘the principal messuage and manor’ in the barony of Listoun (1). In 1630 the same lands with the manor were conferred in a charter of novodamus on Mr John Skene, a clerk of the College of Justice (1); and Mr Andrew Skene of Hallyards is on record in 1631 (2).
RCAHMS 1929, visited 25 June 1913.
(1) Reg. Mag. Sig. s.a. No. 2081 and No. 1566; (2) Reg. Pr. Co. iv, p . 646.
