Pitcur Castle

Pitcur Castle is a well-preserved roofless ruin of 4 storeys. It is of T-plan construction and contains a round tower in the NW re-entrant angle. The round- arched entrance, with iron yett, is in the N front. The walls, of coursed rubble, are generally 1.2m thick, and a fireplace and remains of two barrel-vaulted cellars are contained on the ground floor. These features bear out its 16th c date.

Visited by OS (JLD) 28 April 1958

No change to previous report.

Resurveyed at 1:2500.

Visited by OS (NKB) 10 June 1976

Pitcur Castle is a stepped L-plan tower-house of late 15th- or early 16th-century date, which was remodelled in the late 16th century with the addition of a semi-circular stair-turret in the W re-entrant angle; in the late 19th century the building was consolidated and the wall-head modified. The main block is of three principal storeys (13.33m from WSW to ENE by 8.05m transversely over rubble walls 1.2m thick at ground floor level) and the wing of four (7.95m by 4.67m overall), and the stair-turret has three stages, each marked by a chamfered and cavetto-moulded string-course; the entrance (round-headed, with a moulded surround consisting of an edge-roll, fillet and hollow roll moulding, and fitted with a 19th-century wrought iron grill) is in the NNW wall and has a panel-niche above. The vaulted basement in the main block is divided into two chambers and is lit by a series of keyhole loops (later blocked); access to both chambers was modified at the time the stair-turret was built.

The first-floor hall, which was originally also vaulted (now only the cut-back haunches survive), retains the tusking and jambs for a canopied fireplace (carried on clustered and moulded shafts with caps) and was lit by three windows (half-shuttered, direct glazed and barred; that closest to the fireplace has a moulded external surround), all with window-seats, and two high-level windows flanking the fireplace (one a bull's eye); there are two aumbries, one beside the fireplace and the other in the opposite wall (and originally shelved); a salt-box is set in the jamb of the fireplace. The third floor has the usual arrangement of two chambers, each with a window and garderobe. In the wing, the ground floor is divided into kitchen and vestibule; the floors above provided additional accommodation and, with the exception of the third-floor chamber, all were provided with garderobes.

The lands of Pitcur are on record in 1315; in 1432 they passed by marriage from the family of Chisholme to Halyburton. Stobie depicts the tower as ruinous.

Visited by RCAHMS (IMS/PC) 20 June 1989.

Pitcur passed through marriage into the possession of the Halyburton family in 1432, and remains part of the Hallyburton estate, where it is adjacent to the house of Pitcur Farm. Very little is recorded of its history.

The tower house was built as the principal residence of the Halyburtons of Pitcur. It is a complex building that has not yet been analysed in detail. In its final form it is of basically L-shaped plan, with a main block aligned approximately from east to west, and a wing projecting from the eastern end of its north face. There is a circular stair tower within the re-entrant angle of the two parts which is clearly a relatively late addition, both on the basis of its architectural detailing, and of the way that it is simply butted up against earlier features, though it is no longer clear what provision there was for access between the floors before it was built. It is also possible that the wing was itself an addition to the original tower, though it clearly pre-dates the stair.

The main block was ultimately of three storeys, with two barrel vaulted compartments at ground floor level, a barrel vaulted hall at first floor level, and an upper chamber floor, which would have been subdivided by a timber partition on the basis of the pair of adjacent latrine closets in the south wall. Evidence of a roof raggle and of crowsteps (the latter probably modern) in the northern half of the east gable, together with a slight change in masonry below second-floor level on the south face, could suggest that initially the main block was a two storey hall house rather than a tower house. On the basis of blocked inverted keyhole gun loops in the south wall, the main block of the castle may have been first built in the later fifteenth century.

The wing, which is slightly inset from the east wall of the main block, rises through four storeys, with a barrel-vaulted kitchen at the lowest level and timber floors above. If the second floor of the main block is an addition, the wing could have been added at the same time as the main block was heightened, and there is slight evidence for the corbelling of wall-head turrets at the south-east corner of the main block and north-east corner of the wing. The tower is now entered through a handsome round-arched doorway which, rather unusually, is located in the outer face of the wing. The mouldings of that doorway suggest a sixteenth-century date, and it may be that it replaced an earlier doorway that faced into the re-entrant angle before the stair was added.

J Gifford 2007; RCAHMS 1994; N Tranter 1962

Information from the HES Castle Conservation Register, 5 July 2022