Moncur Castle
Fortified House (Post Medieval), Tower House (16th Century)
Site Name Moncur Castle
Classification Fortified House (Post Medieval), Tower House (16th Century)
Alternative Name(s) Rossie Priory Policies
Canmore ID 30401
Site Number NO22NE 2
NGR NO 28352 29522
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/30401
- Council Perth And Kinross
- Parish Inchture
- Former Region Tayside
- Former District Perth And Kinross
- Former County Perthshire
NO22NE 2 28351 29519
(NO 2835 2952) Moncur Castle (NR)
OS 6" map (1959)
Moncur Castle: A small house of the period 1540-1700, three storeys in height and in a roofless, dismantled condition.
D MacGibbon and T Ross 1887
Destroyed by fire about the beginning of the 18th century.
NSA 1845 (E S Walker)
Field Visit (15 June 1964)
Only the shell of this castle remains, with walls to a maximum height of c.10.0m. The tower is Z-plan with a large circular tower at its SW angle and rectangular tower at its NE angle. Between the circular tower and the SW wall of the castle is a smaller circular tower with turnpike stairway. The remains are overgrown with vegetation.
Visited by OS (WDJ) 15 June 1964
Field Visit (June 1989)
The roofless ruin of Moncur Castle, a Z-plan house of 17th-century date, stands within the policies of Rossie Priory. It consists of a main block of three principal storeys (15.4m from NNW to SSE by 7.3m transversely over walls 1.2m thick at ground-floor level) with two towers, one square the other round, on the N and S respectively; the gables were crow-stepped and the chimney-stacks coped. The entrance (enriched with a quirked edge-roll and fillet, and cavetto moulding) was in the re-entrant on the E side of the N tower and opened onto the principal stair; a newel-stair, rising to the full height of the main block, is extruded in the W re-entrant of the S tower. Although probably a unitary work, there is evidence to suggest that the stair-turret in the W re-entrant of the S tower was probably an addition to the original plan; the main block and towers rise from a chamfered plinth, but in the case of the stair-turret, the plinth is absent, and the turret is only in bond at first-floor level and above. There is a fine series of masons' marks throughout the house.
Within the vaulted ground-floor, accommodation consisted of a kitchen and two store-rooms, connected by a service corridor running the length of the block; features at the kitchen end include the springing for the fireplace, an oven and a slop-sink. The first-floor hall was endowed with a main-fireplace central to the ENE wall (wrought with a stout edge-roll); at the NNW end of the WSW wall there is a mural press and towards the SSE end of the same wall a garderobe. On the second floor provision was made for two chambers and that on the SSE was furnished with a fireplace which has a moulded surround. Further accommodation was provided in the two towers, and each of the chambers in the S tower is provided with a window, an aumbry and a fireplace; that on the first-floor is vaulted.
On the WSW side of the house, and extending S beside the old track to Moncur steading, there is a ditch up to 5.2m broad and 1m deep (for which, see also NO22NE 11).
In the early 15th century Moncur was in the hands of a branch of the Kinnaird family; it became the family seat in the 16th century, but the house itself was abandoned, following a fire, in the early 18th century.
Visited by RCAHMS (IMS) June 1989.
NSA 1845; OS 6-inch map Perthshire, 1st ed. (1867), sheet 87; Millar 1890; D Mac Gibbon and T Ross 1887-92; L Melville 1939.
