Sheilhill Bridge

NO45NW 2 4262 5804.

(NO 4262 5804) Castle (NR) (Site of) (NAT)

OS 6" map, (1959)

The site of the House (Macfarlane 1906-8) or Castle (Statistical Account [OSA] 1791-9) of Quich (Macfarlane 1906-8) or Quiech (OSA 1791-9) is on a precipitous rock overhanging the river. It was formerly the manor house of the Barony of Kinalty and a residence of the Earls of Buchan.

The ruins survived in 1744 but by 1853 nothing remained except what was built into the walls of the cottage which occupied the site, including a lintel dated 1686.

The Statistical Account (OSA 1791-9) seems to imply that the cottage is actually on the site of an associated chapel, of which part of one of the walls of dressed stone was standing a few years before 1797. Quantities of bones were found about 1812 at the angle of the woods which skirt the White and Black Burns and meet near the castle. Jervise (1853) notes "a fountain" dedicated to St Colm near the chapel site but nothing was known of this in 1862 although a spring is noted in a steep bank east of Shielhill Bridge (NO 426 580).

W Macfarlane 1906-8; OSA 1791-9; A Jervise 1853; Name Book 1862.

Nothing now remains of this castle. Its site is a promontory bounded on the S by the River South Esk and on the E and W by fast-flowing streams. There is an easy approach from the N along a ridge 40.0m wide but there are no signs of any defence work on this side.

The remains of a cottage at Shielhill were examined in 1958, but apart from containing the window lintel with the date 1686 built into the W wall, no castellated structure was seen. The cottage may however have been built from the stones of the castle (information from OS (JLD) 4 September 1958).

There is no date lintel to be seen in the now ruined cottage at NO 4263 5804. This lintel, however, may have been built into the wall of the cottage that stood at NO 4267 5804 and was demolished to make way for the new road bridge built in 1973.

There is no trace and no local knowledge of either a chapel or a fountain at this site.

Visited by OS (BS) 5 January 1977.

NO 426 580 The reputed site of the manor of Quiech stands high above the River South Esk and is now occupied by the ruins of a cottage and its garden. The manor is on record from 1500 but was ruinous by the mid-18th century. This cottage, or a predecessor, dates from the late 18th century, but built into its walls and lying amongst the fallen rubble are architectural fragments, mainly of doorways and windows, from an earlier higher status building (or possibly from the 'chapel' from which the last stones were reported to have been removed shortly before 1797).

Small-scale trial excavations were begun following a landslip which left the gable end of the cottage only 1m from the edge above the river. The excavations have shown that, despite extensive disturbance by gardening activity and animal burrowing, some evidence of earlier structures has survived. The wall of the cottage itself appears to have been partially built over an earlier, broader wall. Finds include 15th-century pottery.

A M Dick 2003