Fairburn Tower is a recently restored Scottish castle near Inverness and Muir of Ord in the parish of Urray.
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The tower house on a hill above the River Orrin is believed to have been built in 1545 for Murdo Mackenzie.
Fairburn Tower is a recently restored Scottish castle near Inverness and Muir of Ord in the parish of Urray.
The tower house on a hill above the River Orrin is believed to have been built in 1545 for Murdo Mackenzie.
Murdo Mackenzie (died 1590) was a son of Roderick (Rory) Mackenzie, [1] and probably a nephew of John Mackenzie of Kintail. [2] Rory Mackenzie, a nephew of Thomas Fraser, 2nd Lord Lovat, [3] who died in 1533, owned nearby farms or townships at Comrie, [4] Scatnell, and "Acheleis", and the mill at Contin. [5] His mother is said to have been a daughter of Duncan McWilliam Dow vic Leod. [6]
Murdo Mackenzie became a courtier, a groom or valet of the bedchamber for James V of Scotland from 1538. [7] It is said that Murdo was sent to join the royal household after his father impressed the king in a wrestling match. [8]
Murdo Mackenzie is recorded as a companion of the king in 1540 at Stirling Castle, Falkland Palace, and Dudhope Castle. On 30 April 1540 the king's pursemaster John Tennent gave him 22 shillings to buy gunpowder in Dundee for the king's handguns. [9] Mackenzie, and three other grooms of the chamber, Alexander Kemp, Sandy Whitelaw, and Andrew Drummond, were given money for livery clothes in 1540, and their clothing allowance was increased. [10] In June 1542 Mackenzie was given a gift of "composition" worth £113. [11]
Murdo Mackenzie was granted the lands of Fairburn and other farms on 1 April 1542, [12] and for the hearth of each homestead he was to pay the feudal duty of a hen, called a "reik hen." He was instructed to build a new house with orchards and a garden. [13] After he married Mariobelle or Margaret Urquhart, in 1549 Mary, Queen of Scots gave him more land in the parish. [14] A translation of Mackenzie's charter is given in the Origines Parochiales. [15] Murdo Mackenzie died on 20 December 1590 and wished to be buried with his forebears in Beauly Priory.
The original entrance was on the first floor, with an internal stair providing the only access to the vaulted ground floor chamber. A wing with a stair was added to the older tower in the 17th-century, providing a ground-floor entrance to the tower. There are shot-holes or gun-loops at ground-floor level and bartizans or turrets on wall heads. [16] [17]
The adjacent lands of "Wester Fairburn" were given to Andrew Keith, Lord Dingwall in March 1584. [18]
The tower and the Mackenzie family were mentioned in the prophecies of the Brahan Seer, predicting the end of the family and the ruin of the building, and the apparition of a cow upstairs. [19] The seer, Kenneth Ower or Coinneach Odhar, was executed for witchcraft at the Chanonry of Ross in 1578. [20]
The tower was abandoned around the year 1780 and the roof, which was made with oak shingles, blew down in a gale in 1803. [21] Hugh Miller, who heard stories of the Mackenzies from a woman called Isobel, known as "Mad Bell", described the ruin as a "ghastly spectre of the past". [22]
Fairburn Tower is Category A listed by Historic Environment Scotland. [23] [24] It has been restored by the Landmark Trust, and is now available for holiday rental. [25] [26]
Clan Mackenzie is a Scottish clan, traditionally associated with Kintail and lands in Ross-shire in the Scottish Highlands. Traditional genealogies trace the ancestors of the Mackenzie chiefs to the 12th century. However, the earliest Mackenzie chief recorded by contemporary evidence is Alexander Mackenzie of Kintail who died some time after 1471. Traditionally, during the Wars of Scottish Independence, the Mackenzies supported Robert the Bruce, but feuded with the Earls of Ross in the latter part of the 14th century. During the 15th and 16th-centuries the Mackenzies feuded with the neighboring clans of Munro and MacDonald. In the 17th century the Mackenzie chief was made Earl of Seaforth in the peerage of Scotland. During the Scottish Civil War of the 17th century the Mackenzies largely supported the Royalists. During the Jacobite rising of 1715 the chief and clan of Mackenzie supported the Jacobite cause. However, during the Jacobite rising of 1745 the clan was divided with the chief, Kenneth Mackenzie, Lord Fortrose, supporting the British-Hanoverian Government and his relative, George Mackenzie, 3rd Earl of Cromartie, supporting the Jacobites.
The Clan Macrae is a Highland Scottish clan. The clan has no chief; it is therefore considered an armigerous clan.
The Brahan Seer, known in his native Scottish Gaelic as Coinneach Odhar, and Kenneth Mackenzie, was, according to legend, a predictor of the future who lived in the 17th century.
Castle Chanonry of Ross, also known as Seaforth Castle, was located in the town of Fortrose, to the north-east of Inverness, on the peninsula known as the Black Isle, Highland, Scotland. Nothing now remains of the castle. The castle was also known as Canonry or Chanonrie of Ross, the former county.
The Macaulay family of Uig in Lewis, known in Scottish Gaelic as Clann mhic Amhlaigh, were a small family located around Uig on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. There is no connection between the Macaulays of Lewis and Clan MacAulay which was centred in the Loch Lomond area, bordering the Scottish Highlands and Scottish Lowlands. The Macaulays of Lewis are generally said to be of Norse origin because of the etymology of their surname and also because of the islands' Viking Age past. However, a recent analysis of the Y-DNA of men with Scottish surnames has shown that a large number of Hebridean Macaulays are of Irish origin. In the 17th century, however, tradition gave the Macaulays an Irish origin. By the end of the 16th century the dominant clan on Lewis was Clan Macleod of The Lewes. Other notable Lewis clans were the somewhat smaller Morrisons of Ness and the even less numerous Macaulays of Uig. The Macaulays were centred in the area surrounding Uig on the western coast of Lewis, and had a deadly, long-standing feud with the Morrisons, whose lands were located on the northern coast around Ness. Today the Lewis surname Macaulay is considered to be a sept name of the Macleods of Lewis. There are two other nearby clans of Macaulays who may, or may not, be connected to the Lewis clan—the Wester Ross Macaulays, and the Uist MacAulays.
Kenneth Mackenzie, 3rd Earl of Seaforth was a Highland clan chief and Scottish nobleman, who adhered faithfully to Charles II through his tribulations. From his great stature he was known among the Highlanders as "Coinneach Mor".
Alexander Mackenzie, known as "Ionraic", traditionally counted as 6th of Kintail, was the first chief of the Clan Mackenzie of whom indisputable contemporary documentary evidence survives. During his long life, he greatly expanded his clan's territories and influence.
Hector Roy Mackenzie of Gairloch was a Scottish clan chieftain of the Clan Mackenzie, who acquired vast estates in and around Gairloch, Wester Ross as a result of his services to the Scottish crown and challenged his nephew for the chiefship of the clan.
Alexander Mackenzie, was a Scottish historian, author, magazine editor and politician. He was born on a croft, in Gairloch. He had little opportunity for education and initially earned his living as a labourer and ploughman. In 1861 he became apprenticed in the clothes trade selling Scottish cloth in Colchester. In 1869 he settled in Inverness, where he and his brother set up a clothes shop in Clach na Cudainn House. From his business premises he derived his nickname 'Clach na Cudainn' or simply 'Clach'. He later became an editor and publisher of the Celtic Magazine, and the Scottish Highlander. Mackenzie wrote numerous clan histories. He was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. A founder member of the Gaelic Society of Inverness, Mackenzie was elected an 'Honorary Chieftain' in 1894.
The chiefs of the Scottish highland Clan Mackenzie were historically known as the Mackenzies of Kintail. By tradition the Mackenzie chiefs descend from Kenneth Mackenzie, 1st of Kintail however their earliest ancestor proven by contemporary evidence is Alexander Mackenzie, 6th of Kintail. The chiefly line became the Earls of Seaforth during the 17th century but this title was later forfeited in the 18th century due to support of the Jacobite rising of 1715. The current official chief of the Clan Mackenzie is John Ruaridh Grant Mackenzie, 5th Earl of Cromartie.
Kenneth Mackenzie, traditionally reckoned 7th of Kintail and nicknamed Coinneach a'bhlair, was a Highland chief, being head of the Clan Mackenzie.
John Mackenzie, or "John of Killin", traditionally reckoned 9th of Kintail, was a Highland chief and head of the Clan Mackenzie.
Fionnla Dubh mac Gillechriosd is purported to have been a 15th-century Scotsman, who lived in the north-west of Scotland. The Gaelic Fionnla Dubh mac Gillechriosd translates into English as "Fionnla the black, son of Gillechriosd". Fionnla Dubh is known from a late 17th-century traditional account of Clan Macrae; within that account he presented as a prominent ancestor of the clan. The tradition relates that for a time the chief of Clan Mackenzie was absent, and during that time his bastard uncles were causing trouble in the Mackenzies' territories of Kintail and Kinlochewe. Fionnla Dubh was then ordered to retrieve the chief and was successful in his task. From that time onward, says the tradition, the Macraes from the Kintail area rose in prominence amongst their Mackenzie lords. Tradition also states that Fionnla Dubh is an ancestor of the leading lines of the Macraes from Kintail.
James Kirkcaldy of Grange, a Fife laird and treasurer of Scotland.
The siege of Inverness took place in 1649 as part of the 17th-century Scottish Civil War that was, in turn, part of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.
The siege of Brahan took place in Scotland in November 1715 and was part of the Jacobite rising of 1715. Highlanders loyal to the British-Hanoverian government of George I of Great Britain laid siege to Brahan Castle, seat of William Mackenzie, 5th Earl of Seaforth, who was a staunch Jacobite, loyal to the House of Stuart.
The Bain, Bane or Bayne family of Tulloch were a minor Scottish noble family.
Sir William Hamilton of Sanquhar was pursemaster for James V and the Captain of Edinburgh Castle during the Regency of Regent Arran.
The Mackenzies of Gairloch were a minor noble Scottish family and one of the senior cadet branches of the Clan Mackenzie, a Scottish clan of the Scottish Highlands.
Murdo or Murdoch Mackenzie, also known as Murdo McRorie was a Scottish courtier and the builder of Fairburn Tower near Inverness.
