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Torwood Castle
Garden (17th Century)(Possible), Tower House (16th Century)
Site Name Torwood Castle
Classification Garden (17th Century)(Possible), Tower House (16th Century)
Canmore ID 47026
Site Number NS88SW 3
NGR NS 83590 84368
Datum OSGB36 - NGR
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/47026
- Council Falkirk
- Parish Dunipace
- Former Region Central
- Former District Falkirk
- Former County Stirlingshire
NS88SW 3 83590 84368
(NS 83590 84368) Torwood Castle (NR) (remains of)
OS 6" map (1967)
Torwood Castle appears to have been built in 1566, the date carved on a stone panel found about 1918 in a stone dyke some 200 yds NW of the building, and now in Falkirk Museum. It is L-shaped on plan.
The main building is roofless, but is of particular interest in view of its evident transitional character between castle and mansion; it comprises a vaulted ground floor, a principal floor and an attic. The wing, a square tower with gables at N and S, contains the main stair. The cobbled courtyard was evidently enclosed by three ranges of building, but much of the structure has now vanished.
S of the castle there are traces of what was probably a large kitchen-garden, with some remains of stone foundations, as of a small enclosure, within its W side.
In the Middle Ages the Tor Wood was an area of Royal forest, the office of forester being held from the second half of the 15th century until the mid-17th century by the Foresters of Garden.
RCAHMS 1963, visited 1955
A number of structural features - gateway, door and window openings were uncovered in 1958 by Mr Millar of Torwood, who replaced fallen stones, where they could be identified. Small finds, mainly very late medieval pottery, included a key from an internal door.
D M Hunter 1958.
The castle is as described and planned by the RCAHMS There are several scatters of stone to the S of the castle, but no trace of enclosures. Revised at 25".
Visited by OS (DWR) 22 January 1974
Possible 17th century garden.
N Hynd 1984.
NS 8359 8436 Two rooms in the N range of courtyard buildings of the castle (NMRS NS88SW 3) were excavated down to the levels of the latest floor make-up. The make-up formed part of the extensive terracing of this part of the site. The courtyard was entered through a neatly cobbled pend in the centre of the wing. Room 1 lay to the E of this. In its initial phase Room 1 had an oven of brick construction in its NW corner, surrounded by a paved floor. An internal N-S wooden partition had divided the room in two. This partition was subsequently rebuilt in stone, and the oven moved to its E. Mortar floors covered the earlier stone paving.
Room 2 contained a rock-cut well with an arched head. Once into bedrock the shaft expanded to 1.8 x 2.2m. A turner of 1632 was found in the floor make-up associated with the well-head. A stone trough or drain occurred in the SE corner of the room. The S wall of the room was located further S than depicted on earlier plans.
Sponsors: Falkirk Local History Society, Torwood Castle Trust.
G Bailey 1999
3-4 storey L-plan tower house with a short wing set at right angles to the main block. The small square tower which sits in the re-entrant angle contains the entrance, which is framed by a moulded doorway with a decorative panel and carved shell motif. A large courtyard with a well is situated to the North.
The main building of the castle is assumed to have been built in the years around 1566 on the basis of an inscribed stone found in the vicinity, and now in Falkirk Museum. It was the home of the Forrester of Garden family, who derived their name from their hereditary role as royal foresters. The estates passed to Lord Forrester of Corstorphine in 1635, and it is thought that it was he who reconstructed the rectangular forecourt of ancillary buildings on the north side of the castle. The castle is particularly remembered as the place captured by the Earls of Angus and Mar in 1585 as they prepared to take Stirling castle (Historic Scotland)
Field Visit (July 1977)
Torwood Castle NS 835 843 NS88SW 3
L-shaped tower-house probably built in 1566. Much of the structure has vanished, but the building is now undergoing restoration and hitherto unrecorded features have been uncovered.
RCAHMS 1978, visited July 1977
(RCAHMS 1963, pp. 337-9, no. 299; DES, 1958, 37)
Note (5 July 2022)
The main building of the castle is assumed to have been built in the years around 1566 on the basis of an inscribed stone found in the vicinity, and now in Falkirk Museum. It was the home of the Forrester of Garden family, who derived their name from their hereditary role as royal foresters. The estates passed to Lord Forrester of Corstorphine in 1635, and it is thought that it was he who reconstructed the rectangular forecourt of ancillary buildings on the north side of the castle. The castle is particularly remembered as the place captured by the Earls of Angus and Mar in 1585 as they prepared to take Stirling castle.
The castle is an example of the type of mid-sixteenth-century residence that had a first-floor lodging consisting of a hall and chamber as its principal accommodation. It is of L-shaped plan, with the principal lodging in the rectangular main block that runs from east to west. The spacious principal stair, which has the entrance to the castle at its base, and which rose no higher than the first floor, is in a wing at the north-west-corner of the main block, There is a second, smaller stair in a projection within the re-entrant angle between the main block and the wing, which gave access to the floor above the hall and chamber. The uppermost floors in the wing, which rose above the main body of the castle, were reached by a smaller stair that was corbelled out above the hall roof. The wing and stair tower were externally more richly treated than the rest of the castle, though they appear to be of the same date.
The basement was divided into a series of vaulted chambers, with a corridor along the side towards the courtyard. The kitchen was in the largest of those chambers, at the eastern end of the building. The floor above the principal lodging was divided into an uncertain number of smaller chambers, and was lit by dormer windows, some the sills of which survive. At the south-west corner of the main block is an unusual small projection that appears to have contained several levels of closets served by a small spiral stair.
The forecourt to the north of the castle, which was entered through a transe at the centre of the north range, appears to have been later than the castle in its present form. However, there were always intended to be ancillary buildings on this side on the evidence of tusking at the castle's north-east corner and the provision of a doorway on the north side of the chamber.
J Gifford and F A Walker 2002; D MacGibbon and T Ross 1887; RCAHMS 1963
Information from the HES Castle Conservation Register, 5 July 2022
