Note

Date 5 July 2022

Event ID 1138953

Category Descriptive Accounts

Type Note

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1138953

Evelick was the residence of a branch of the Lindsay family. The designation 'of Evelick'; was evidently first used in 1497 by the David Lindsay who then held the estates; before then the family is said to have been designated as 'of Leroquhy'. The existing tower house probably dates from the later decades of the sixteenth century.

The family was granted a baronetcy in 1666. The castle has been associated with a number of significant events. Thomas, the second son of the first baronet, was murdered by his step-brother, William Douglas, in 1682, and the latter was subsequently executed. In 1752 Margaret, the daughter of Sir Alexander and Lady Amelia Lindsay, eloped with the painter Allan Ramsay to become his second wife. The last of the line died through drowning in 1799.

The castle is set out to a staggered L-shaped plan, with a circular turret for a spiral stair in the re-entrant angle between the two elements. The main block of the tower is aligned approximately from east to west, and the wing, which is towards the west end of its south face, projects a short way beyond that west end. Masonry tusks projecting from the east gable show that there was to have been a lower range projecting from that side, though the absence of any roof crease suggests that any such range was never built in permanent form. The roofs appear to have oversailed the relatively thin walls, with no evident provision for wall walks at any point, and in its overall appearance the tower is domestic in appearance. However, there is an unusually generous provision of wide-mouthed gun holes at all levels, including a surprisingly large number at garret level.

The tower was entered at the base of the stair turret, above and to one side of which there is a moulded frame for an armorial tablet. Above the basement, the vaults of which have collapsed, there were two principal storeys and a garret in the main block. From the scale of the flues in the south gable of the wing it appears the kitchen was in the basement of that part. As might be expected, the hall was on the first floor of the main block, while the provision of paired stool closets in the north wall indicates that the second floor was divided into two chambers. The garret was lit by windows in the gable walls, and presumably also by dormers, evidence for the design of which may survive in either in the collapsed masonry or in the fragments that have been re-used around the modern steading.

J Gifford 2007; N Haynes 2000; D MacGibbon and T Ross 1887; RCAHMS 1887; RCAHMS; N Tranter 1962

Information from the HES Castle Conservation Register, 5 July 2022