Field Visit

Date 13 April 1994

Event ID 547408

Category Recording

Type Field Visit

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/547408

Early (13th cent.) house with additions in 14th and 17th cents, and later. It is first mentioned in 1256 but is better known as the summer palace of the 13th Bishop, Alexander de Kynimand (1329-41) who made extensive additions to it. The foundations of these extensions were uncovered some years before 1906 when some perfect pieces of advanced first-pointed moulding and tracery in Kildrummy freestone were discovered. In 1549, the house and barony were granted to the Earl of Huntly, and a charter of 1566 mentions the palace, a fortalice and a tower.

The building is now a crumbling shell bearing the date 1693 on a plaque above the main entrance in the S wall; there are no indications of an earlier structure. The name Wallace's Tower is not known locally but does not refer to either of the towers, which are both clearly associated with the 17th cent. house.

Some 25m S of the house there are the scant remains of an early building, which was excavated (to a depth of 1.8m) many years ago and is incorrectly described as the Fortress of Fetternear on the OS 25" map. The walls show no trace of mortar and are up to 3.5m wide; they are probably the foundations of the Palace of the Bishops of Aberdeen.

A copper sundial (by James Villier, 1798) on a granite baluster is in the garden of the new house.

Information from Aberdeenshire Archaeological Service, visited 13 April 1994.

NMRS, MS/712/19.