Elcho Castle, another re-post.
Another day dawns with the dreaded harle swirling around my garden, this is low lying cloud taken to extreme. My poor dog became lost in its murky mist. Poor wee thing, she only has one eye to start with, and that eye doesn't see too well at the best of times so submerge her in this peculiar Scottish weather phenomena and she doesn't stand a chance. You wouldn't think my garden was big enough to get lost in even for a half blind, partially deaf and increasingly senile dog, you'd be wrong, she did. Low lying cloud be dammed, cause of mortal danger to small unsuspecting dogs in its path.
I heard a small piece about Elcho Castle on the radio today and it reminded me of my visit there last year.
It’s not the most famous of Scotland's little treasures but it is a totally wonderful place to visit. It's quite well hidden, not easy to find, not particularly well signposted and very easily missed!! But it is worth persevering and finding.
www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/perth/elchocastle
NB Warning!! Alert!!, please don't do as I did and go rushing up the many narrow stairs and then hang over the top of the highest tower to take pictures IF, as I was, you are accompanied by an asthmatic who gets vertigo at anything over first floor level!! ...... oops silly, silly me.
What can I say, another of Scotland's beautiful Tower Houses. As Red Castle must be one of the most ruinous tower houses left, Elcho Castle is one of the most intact and original. Elcho Castle has stairs, floors, passageways, vaulted basements, everything in its original state with the exception of the roof and windows which were replaced in the 1830's. The building of this Tower House is believed to have started in or about 1550; building began once all the lands of Elcho had been consolidated under the ownership of the Wemyss family.
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The Castle was the main residence of the Wemyss family. The first record of the land of Elcho is in the 'Register of the Great Seal' when Easter Elcho was granted by James III to John of Wemyss, BUT, there is mention of a 'place of strength' called 'Elkok' in Blind Harry's epic tale 'Wallace'. It’s thought there was some sort of earlier structure that stood on or close to the site of present day Elcho Castle. There is no exact parallel to Elcho in any other Tower House in Scotland, it incorporates round towers, square towers, some genuinely defensive elements and some decorative elements of castle architecture. It was built just at the start of the period when country houses were being built in the traditional 'Castle' style, but with many of the defensive elements of the older castles imitated as decorative rather than functional elements. The skyline of this building is fascinating; it has round corbelled turrets, square corbelled turrets and aspects of European architecture blended with traditional Scottish architecture all to produce a very distinctive skyline. When it was built it was of the 'latest fashion'; rather than having an external stairway to the first floor that could be removed if under attack, (as was the fashion in earlier defensive Tower Houses), Elcho has a grand stone stairway running from the ground floor to the grand hall on the first floor.
I think I would like to visit first Red Castle, then visit Edzell Castle and finally Elcho Castle, it would be like visiting a building site and seeing Tower Houses under different stages of construction, only of course in reality they are at different stages of deconstruction. Buildings like these you can 'read', it's like peeling an onion and looking inside at the different sages of build. It’s fascinating, or at least it is too me, maybe not to other people.
Elcho Castle is a totally amazing, interesting and absolutely 'worth a visit' piece of Scottish history.
http://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/perth/elchocastle/index.html
I know this is the first time I've read your post. I enjoy architecture too, and, although this castle may not be one of the most famous, it's been kept in good condition from what I can see.
ReplyDeleteIt does look in pretty good nick, especially by comparison with the other two you have presented Loretta. Your enthusiasm for the historical heritage of your home shines through, historical localism is a wonderful thing I think. It obviously has you bounding up towers and hanging over them in a precipitous manner, which is a sure sign of enthusiasm I think....On a completely different subject I was reading about Robert the Bruce's Norman heritage today (Robert obviously being a Norman name)and this got me thinking about the ahistorical nature of the construction of antipathy between "the English" and the "the Scots"....when it could easily be recast as a dispute between the Normans and Picts, or even the Danes and the Saxons with the Irish invading the west.....the House itself was built when England was ruled by the Welsh Tudor dynasty and after Englands break from Rome in the 1530s. These houses existed in turbulent times and were to face many more upheavals before the comparative calm that surrounds them today could descend. Thanks for the ongoing survey of late medieval and early modern houses in your area it is good to plot these buildings on a historical map of places you describe.
ReplyDeleteI do have an interest in the built environment and the history of architecture. I used to say if I could design my own house it would be based on the Scottish tower house because they really were very comfortable to live in. Inside the walls were decorated with paneling and wall paintings, there were tapestries hung in the main rooms.These houses were usually self sufficient. The people knew all about growing food and drugs, they baked, they brewed, they bottled and they salted. Cloth was dyed with vegetable dyes and clothes were used, reused and then cut down for children.Tower houses were built from solid stone, the walls were about 2 foot thick, they stayed cool in summer and the huge open fires kept them warm in winter. They understood their building material, the mortar was a lime mix and the exterior stone was harled with a lime mix which, unlike modern concrete, allowed the stone to breath. Water was not trapped in the fabric of the building and the stone did not get damp providing the building was harled properly. They managed forests and coppiced trees to provide fuel.I have been vegetarian for years, partly because I don't like meat, but partly because I hate modern husbandry practices. These people knew how to raise food ( crops and cattle) organically, and they hunted. They also used reed beds to deal with their sewage. There used to be hundreds a hundreds of these Tower houses and the reason so many of them have disappeared is because these resourceful people used and reused stone. If they wanted a 'new' house, they would demolish the one they had and reuse every thing. if they wanted their existing house modified, they would build around the original tower house. Its not unusual to find ( if you know how and where to look) the original tower house or at least the footprint of it, right in the middle of seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth century grand houses. Yes Aaron..............I like tower houses :-))
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