Castle Clanyard

NX13NW 2 10850 37428

(NX 1085 3742) Castle Clanyard (NR) (Remains of)

OS 6" map (1957)

Only a portion of the W wall of this keep remains, varying from 10' to 20' high and 2'6" thick; it has evidently been of late date. It belonged to the Gordon Family, and in 1684, Symson described it as "having been of old a very great house, but now something ruinous." M'Kerlie, however, says that the remains do not give the idea that it was a building of much importance.

RCAHMS 1912, visited 1911; A Symson 1684; P H M'Kerlie 1870

The remains consist of a length of the W wall 5.2m long by 0.9m thick, and part of the N wall 2.5m long.

Name confirmed.

Visited by OS (DWR) 27 January 1972

The remains of tower-house, probably dating to the late 16th century, stand in a field 70m ENE of Low Clanyard farmsteading, and comprise a substantial part of the W gable (6.5m high, 5.4m wide and 0.7m thick) and a fragment of its adjoining N wall. The gable incorporates three internally splayed windows and the cut-back haunches for a ground-floor vault. The tower was built for the Gordons of Clanyard and is recorded as ruinous in 1684. The fragment of a stone bearing a carved guilloch mofit, now incorporated internally in the S corner of the meal-barn at Castle Clanyard (NX1063 3707), has probably been derived from the tower.

W Macfarlane 1906-8; P H M'Kerlie 1906; RCAHMS 1912; 1985, visited June 1984.