Castlehill

The farmhouse of Castlehill (at present empty) stands at NO 2760 3042 and is generally understood to be on the site of Baledgarno Castle, although there is no evidence of the earlier building. There are several datestones inserted in the walls of the farm buildings, the oldest, dated 1698, being at NO 2759 3044 in the NE corner of a farm cottage. Immediately above this is a sculptured stone depicting a cow probably a fragment of a heraldic panel.

Visited by OS (RD) 4 February 1969

Within the court of offices and steading at Castlehill, there are a number of carved and moulded stones. These include: framed panel bearing the depiction of a cow (on the NNW side of the court) and beside it a datestone of 1678; a bull-nosed moulding (in re-use as a door-jamb in the same range); a lintel wrought with a mitred-chamfer (over a doorway to the rear of the dovecot in the steading); two chamfered rybats (over a first-floor window), and two stones cut with a splay and rounded upstand (possibly jambs, incorporated in the piers of an open-fronted shed). The stones are said to have come from a castle which occupied the site of the steading (it is attributed by Boethius to King Edgar, 1074-1107, and on the same authority is said to have been repaired in the reign of Alexander 1, 1107-1124), but it is more likely that they derive from an unidentified laird's dwelling, of 16th- or 17th-century date, possibly a tower-house. In the 19th century, 'foundations and pavements' were discovered on the site of the steading, but the status of these remains is unclear.

Melville notes, 'Many years ago an Errol mason, the late John Alexander, when building a huge wash tank or cesspool in an adjoining field about 20 yards (18.29m) to the south of the dovecot at the farmbuildings, came upon extensive foundations which undoubtedly bore the character of an extensive keep' ; the field may be that at NO 2764 2543 (for which, see also NO23SE 30).

Visited by RCAHMS (IMS) May 1989.