Recording Your Heritage Online
Event ID 567029
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Recording Your Heritage Online
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/567029
Ormiclate (Ormacleit, variously spelled: Ormaclate, Ormaclete, Ormiclett, Ormaclett) An important drovers' stance which Bald's map of 1805 shows to have been the site of a considerable community.
Ormiclate Castle, 1701-3
Enigmatic ruin of Allan Macdonald of Clanranald's smart mansion (Castle Tioram in Moidart being the ancient paternal seat), destroyed by fire on the day he was mortally wounded at Sheriffmuir in 1715. The house is T-plan, possibly reworking an earlier structure (thicker, oblique-angled walls at the west end suggest this), with an assymetrical north-facing entrance front enclosed originally by forecourt ranges to east and west in the manner of a 17th century laird's house. The recent unearthing of fragments of green stone explains the local tradition that Ormiclate's steep-gabled roofs were covered in marble. Evidence suggests a first floor piano nobile, with a lower floor level in the south jamb. Most of the chamfered freestone dressings (said to have been carved by French masons) were robbed long ago, leaving ragged holes, but a weathered Clanranald armorial panel survives above the entrance. The singlestorey section of the west forecourt range has an earlier segmental-arched fireplace, probably part of the original house of Ormiclate, begun in the late 16th century by Allan, 9th Clanranald.
Taken from "Greater Glasgow: An Illustrated Architectural Guide", by Sam Small, 2008. Published by the Rutland Press http://www.rias.org.uk
