Kingsbarns Castle

NO51SE 21 59870 12683

(NO 5988 1267) Kingsbarns Castle (NR) (Site of)

OS 6" map (1919)

A moat can be seen about half a mile from the village, where the 'Castle of Kingsbarns' once stood. Its foundations, comprising large stones, regularly laid, were removed a few years ago. 'As a royal or baronial residence the site is...small': it was probably the store for the grain received from the surrounding Crown lands, before its transmission to Falkland.

NSA 1845 (G Wright).

There is no trace of Kingsbarns Castle itself. The site published by the OS falls on a steepish slope: a better site would be at NO 5987 1267. A ditch (? the moat recorded above) enclosing the site on three sides is discernible as a broad unsurveyable depression. There is a gap in the field wall at NO 5997 1267 flanked by the remains of gate pillars, of ashlar blocks unusually large for a normal field gate and laid, with the immediately attached wall, in mortar, the rest of the field wall being of drystone construction. Although its construction suggests that it may be associated with the castle/ granary, there is no other evidence to support this theory.

Ditch plotted at 1/2500.

Visited by OS (EGC), 3 September 1968.

Broad ditch and gateway visible on Ordnance Survey vertical air photographs 67/305/073-4.

(Undated) information in NMRS.

Not seen.

Site recorded by Maritime Fife during the Coastal Assessment Survey for Historic Scotland, Fife Ness to Newburgh 1996.