Corb
Building(S) (Medieval) - (Post Medieval), Castle (Medieval)
Site Name Corb
Classification Building(S) (Medieval) - (Post Medieval), Castle (Medieval)
Canmore ID 29004
Site Number NO15NE 1
NGR NO 1648 5682
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/29004
- Council Perth And Kinross
- Parish Alyth
- Former Region Tayside
- Former District Perth And Kinross
- Former County Perthshire
NO15NE 1 1648 5682.
(NO 1648 5682) Castle (NR) (Site of)
OS 6" map,Perthshire, 2nd ed. (1901)
Traces of a quadrangular building, 30' x 20', situated on an eminence. Nothing is known locally about its date, but the NSA suggests that it was probably a hunting lodge of the Scottish kings, or the Earls of Crawford.
Name Book 1865; New Statistical Account (NSA) 1843
All that can be seen in the vicinity is an irregular turf-covered mound, measuring about 16.0m E-W by 10.0m and 1.0m high, at NO 1646 5685, showing traces of irregular walls too ill-defined to survey or classify. The mound has probably been a building, but has certainly not been a castle. The building noted in the Ordnance Survey Name Book (ONB) can not be positively identified, and there is no trace here of anything which could be interpreted as the foundations of a castle.
Mr Ferguson (C S Ferguson, Corb, Bridge of Cally), the present farmer at Corb, said that although his father and grandfather knew of the tradition of a castle, neither knew its location and never came across any foundations.
Visited by OS (ISS) 8 January 1974
Field Visit (March 1988)
All that remains of this castle is a low grass-covered mound measuring 18m from E to W by 12m transversely. In its immediate vicinity, though not tightly grouped, there are at least five buildings, all reduced to their stone wall-footings.
Of the two largest buildings one is of at least four compartments and measures 26.3m from E to W by 4.6m transversely overall, whilst the other is of three compartments and measures 17.5m from WNW to ESE by 6.4m transversely overall. The remaining buildings range in size from 5.9m by 4m to 14.4m by 4.1m overall; two are of a single compartment, but the third may be of two compartments.
'Koirb' appears on Ponts map (c.1600), 'the house and village of the Corb' are on record in 1727 (Macfarlane 1906), and on Stobie's map (1783) the castle is depicted as ruinous. It is said to have been a hunting seat of the Scottish kings or of the Earls of Crawford (NSA 1843), but in the 17th century it was the property of the Rattray family, from whom it passed in the middle of the 18th century (Marshall 1881). (This report incorporates NO15NE 22).
Visited by RCAHMS (PC) March 1988.
RCAHMS 1990
Measured Survey (1988)
RCAHMS surveyed the tower-house and buildings at Corb in 1988 with a self-reducing alidade and plane-table at 1:500. The resultant plan was redrawn in ink and published at a scale of 1:1000 (RCAHMS 1990, Fig. 203).
