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Lordscairnie Castle

Tower House (Medieval)

Site Name Lordscairnie Castle

Classification Tower House (Medieval)

Canmore ID 31434

Site Number NO31NW 12

NGR NO 34803 17834

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/31434

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Administrative Areas

  • Council Fife
  • Parish Moonzie
  • Former Region Fife
  • Former District North East Fife
  • Former County Fife

Archaeology Notes

NO31NW 12.00 34803 17834.

(NO 3480 1782) Lordscairnie Castle (NR)

OS 6"map, (1959)

Lordscairnie Castle was a late 15th - early 16th century tower house, standing within a barmkin on a slight eminence; and Miller states that at one time it was surrounded by a wide moat which is still visible as a depression. The tower is L-shaped on plan, and now very dilapidated.

The enclosure containing the castle has been entered from the NE, where there are the remains of a circular tower, probably one of two set on either side of the gate.

It is usually said to have been built by "Earl Beardie", fourth Earl of Crawford, in the first half or middle of the 15th century, but this seems too early.

D MacGibbon and T Ross 1887-92; A H Millar 1895; RCAHMS 1933, visited 1925.

Lordscairnie Castle is as described above. The main block measures 12.0m x 8.0m, and the wing 4.0m x 3.0m The tower, the sole remains of the barmkin, measures about 5.0m in external diameter and 6.0m high: there are no traces of a moat.

Visited by OS (D S) 1 November 1956.

No change.

Visited by OS (R D) 26 May 1970.

The remains of the circular tower, visible on oblique aerial photographs (RCAHMSAP 1995), is at NO 3483 1784.

Information from RCAHMS (DE) January 1999

NO 348 178 As part of the programme of survey, excavation and analysis in advance of the proposed restoration of Lordscairnie Castle (NMRS NO31NW 12), a series of trial trenches were excavated over the site. The trenches were located on two low ridges, outside the ruined remains of the tower, in order to examine certain key geophysical anomalies, as well as to investigate some evident topographic features.

The initial findings suggest that the site can be described in terms of seven periods:

Period 1: prehistoric settlement. Ephemeral traces of extensive possible prehistoric settlement on both N and S ridges were discovered, although the precise date and character of that settlement still remains unclear. It seems likely that the natural rocky enclosure on the E end of the N ridge was the focus for some form of structural complex. This involved the terracing of the ridge, its sides as well as its summit, in order to receive buildings of slot and post construction. The scale of settlement and landscaping both in the medieval period and in the later 19th century, coupled with the effects of modern cultivation, has truncated much of this early evidence. The few finds suggest a settlement possibly pre-dating the Iron Age, but until more extensive excavation is completed the details of this period of occupation will remain largely conjectural.

Period 2: early medieval settlement. The known history of the site, in terms of the lands upon which the tower house was ultimately built, its occupation and demise, are reflected by the findings from the S ridge. Documentary evidence implying an early medieval presence, from the mid-12th century up until the development of the site by the Lindsays, was confirmed by an array of residual structural features. These features essentially reflect a defended enclosure with timber buildings within at least two phases of dry ditch. The earlier smaller version was backfilled when the second, wider ditch was established. The latter was probably augmented by a bank or terrace on the upslope side, which in turn may have received a timber palisade. Finds of white gritty ware pottery sherds suggest occupation of the site significantly earlier than the tower house construction.

Period 3: tower house, mid-15th to mid-17th century. The Period 3 presence on the site was largely limited to evidence of the extent of pre-construction landscaping where residual Period 1 and 2 features were levelled or backfilled, as most of the structural elements were themselves drastically robbed out in Periods 6 and 7. Sherds of Scottish reduced ware pottery, as well as glazed redwares, all refer to the Lindsay occupation of the site.

Later activity. Possibly the most striking discovery of the archaeological assessment was the extent of post-medieval robbing and the effects on the surviving archaeology of turning the fields over to pasturage and cultivation. Virtually nothing survived of the barmkin enclosure wall and all obvious traces of even the barmkin surface itself were eroded away. The scale of robbing clearly reflects the recycling of masonry for new farm and wall building, while the survival of the main edifice of the tower and the mural tower suggests a new role in the context of an improved agricultural landscape.

The archaeological potential of the site is one of a truncated but complex sequence, best preserved on the sloping sides of the two ridges, which saw most settlement. In turn, the S ridge contains evidence of all periods of activity noted during the programme of survey and research, while the N ridge does not appear to have been extensively occupied after Period 1.

A Dunn 2000

Activities

Field Visit (9 June 1925)

Lordscairnie Castle.

This has been a tower house, of the late 15th or early 16th century, standing within a barmkin on a slight eminence in an open valley 2 ½ miles north-west of Cupar. It is now very dilapidated [SC 1108521]. The enclosure has been entered from the northeast, at a point indicated by the remains of a circular tower, probably one of two set on either side of the gate. The upper part of this tower is ruinous, but the lower part contains a small vaulted chamber, pierced by three gun-loops covering the approach. At one side is the beginning of the barmkin wall, and at the other is one jamb of the gate, which has evidently had a semi-circular head, heavily moulded. Gate and tower may be rather later than the main structure.

The house is L-shaped on plan. The main block lies east and west, and the wing projects from the north-western angle to contain the staircase. The masonry is a boulder rubble with freestone dressings. The southern angles have been surmounted by open rounds, of which part of the corbelling remains. There have been four storeys below the wall-head, the lowest of them vaulted. Windows are few in number and are chamfered at jamb and lintel. The entrance, situated at the stair-foot, is in ruins; it has been covered by a machicolation, as is indicated by two triple-membered corbels. The stair has been continuous.

The ground-floor storey has been subdivided by a parpen-wall into two cellars, which are lit from north and south. The first floor seems to have been a single chamber, the Hall, a large room 41 by 21 feet, adequately lit from north, south and west, with seats in the embrasures of the windows. Traces of the fireplace are seen in the south wall, and in each wall is an aumbry. The second and third floors have each apparently been subdivided into two chambers and otherwise only differ from the Hall in having mural chambers, now inaccessible but possibly garderobes.

HISTORICAL N OTE. - "Lordscairnie", was so called to distinguish it from other portions of the same district, such as Hillcairnie, Myrecairnie, &c. In 1355 David de Lindsay, lord of Crawford, made a grant to the church of the monastery of Lindores from his land of "Carny" (1). Thereafter Lordscairnie continued in possession of the Lindsays, afterwards Earls of Crawford (2). The tower is usually said to have been erected by "Earl Beardie," fourth Earl of Crawford, in the first half of the 15th century, but this period seems rather too early

RCAHMS 1933, visited 9 June 1925.

(1) Reg. Mag. Sig., i, No. 190. (2) Stat. Acct., viii, p. 584.

Note (5 July 2022)

The lands of Cairnie were a possession of the Crawford Lindsays from at least 1355, when parts were granted to Lindores Abbey. The castle is thought to have been built by Alexander Lindsay of Auchtermoonzie, uncle of the 6th Earl of Crawford, who succeeded as 7th earl in 1513. As second son of the 4th earl he had had no expectations of succeeding to the earldom until the death of his nephew at Flodden, and he had evidently provided with a separate patrimony based on Moonzie, with its residence at Lordscairnie.

Having been abandoned for occupation by the seventeenth century, the hall of the castle is said to have been used for worship by an Episcopal congregation, following the abolition of episcopacy in the established Church. It was evidently later put to agricultural uses.

The core of the castle is a substantial L-plan tower house assumed to date from the years around 1500. The spiral stair that links all floors is within the small wing projecting from the west end of the north elevation. There is a single entrance at the base of the stair wing.

The tower had four levels of accommodation including a barrel-vaulted ground floor, and there was presumably a garret within the roof space. The latrine closets were concentrated in the west wall, and the lower part of the chute that served them is externally evident in that wall. The parapet wall at the wall head has been lost, but its level is indicated by the corbelling of some of the corner rounds. The stair turret was carried up higher than the main body of the tower, though the wall walk of the tower was extended along its east face, where there are the corbels of a machicolation above the entrance.

Of the other buildings once associated with the tower house, the sole survivor is a small D-shaped tower that can be seen to have been part of a gatehouse to the main courtyard. On its south side are traces of the jamb of a major opening that appears to have had provision for both a door and a yett. The wide-mouthed form of the gun holes in the walls of the gate tower indicate a date for this part of no earlier than the middle decades of the sixteenth century.

J Gifford 1988; NSA 1845; RCAHMS 1933

Information from the HES Castle Conservation Register, 5 July 2022

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