Seafield Tower | |
---|---|
Fife, Scotland | |
Coordinates | 56°04′59″N3°09′36″W / 56.08295°N 3.16011°W |
Type | Tower-house and courtyard |
Site information | |
Condition | ruined |
Site history | |
Built | c. 1542 |
Built by | John Moultray |
In use | until 1733 |
Materials | Sandstone |
Seafield Tower is a ruined castle on the North Sea coast of Fife in Scotland (grid reference NT279884 ). The monument is also referred to as a 'Medieval Tower House'. [1]
The tower is located on the route of the Fife Coastal Path.
Built in the 16th century (c. 1542), [2] Seafield Tower lies between Kinghorn and Kirkcaldy in Fife, Scotland. The lands of Seafield and Markinch were granted to Robert Multrare by James II of Scotland in 1443. [3] The lands and the tower remained in the ownership of the Multray family [4] (or Moultrie as the family name became) until 1631 when the lands were sold to James Law, the Archbishop of Glasgow. [5] With Law's death in 1632, the tower passed through various owners. The Methven family were the last known owners of the tower. Its last owner was Methven of Raith who abandoned it in 1733, leaving it to it fall into disrepair and, eventually, ruin. [6]
The completed tower was believed to be five stories high with walls 5 feet (1.5 m) thick and maximum internal dimensions of 20 feet 2 inches (6.1 m) by 14 feet 4 inches (4.4 m). [7] It was constructed in an 'L' shape configuration using local red sandstone. The Tower would have had a vaulted storage area on the ground floor and a Great Hall on the first floor. The upper levels would have been the lord's accommodation. A plan from 1774 shows ancillary buildings - including a bakery, brewery and stables - which were located in an enclosure to the west of the Tower. [8] These buildings would normally have been protected by a barmkin (curtain wall) but, unfortunately, any evidence of this has been lost due to coastal erosion. [9]
As it stands today, the ruin is merely a shell in derelict condition. [10] Following a storm in January 2013, a significant part of the northwest corner of the tower collapsed. [11]
Between 1973 and 2015 the remains of the tower were designated a Category B listed building by Historic Scotland. [12] The tower was removed from Category B in 2015 as, since 2003, the tower and its surrounding area (which has been scheduled since 1937) have been designated as one combined scheduled monument. [13] [14]
Perthshire, officially the County of Perth, is a historic county and registration county in central Scotland. Geographically it extends from Strathmore in the east, to the Pass of Drumochter in the north, Rannoch Moor and Ben Lui in the west, and Aberfoyle in the south; it borders the counties of Inverness-shire and Aberdeenshire to the north, Angus to the east, Fife, Kinross-shire, Clackmannanshire, Stirlingshire and Dunbartonshire to the south and Argyllshire to the west.
Fife is a council area, historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries with Perth and Kinross and Clackmannanshire. By custom it is widely held to have been one of the major Pictish kingdoms, known as Fib, and is still commonly known as the Kingdom of Fife within Scotland. A person from Fife is known as a Fifer. In older documents the county was very occasionally known by the anglicisation Fifeshire.
Perth and Kinross is one of the 32 council areas of Scotland, and a lieutenancy area. It is bordered by Highland and Aberdeenshire to the north, Angus, Dundee, and Fife to the east, Clackmannanshire to the south, and Stirling and Argyll and Bute to the west.
Abernethy is a village and former burgh in the Perth and Kinross council area and historic county of Perthshire, in the east central Lowlands of Scotland. The village is situated in rural Strathearn, 8 miles (13 km) south-east of the city of Perth, near the River Earn's confluence with the River Tay and on the northern edge of the Ochil Hills.
The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) was an executive non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government that was "sponsored" [financed and with oversight] through Historic Scotland, an executive agency of the Scottish Government.
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Elcho Castle is located close to the south bank of the River Tay approximately four miles south-east of Perth, Scotland, in the region of Perth and Kinross. It was maintained by Clan Wemyss from its construction around 1560 until it was put into the care of the Secretary of State for Scotland in the early 20th century, though was not occupied for the entire time. In around 1830 it was re-roofed and a nearby cottage constructed. The castle has been a scheduled monument since 1920 on the grounds of being "a particularly fine example of a Medieval tower-house", and the cottage became a listed building in 1971 in recognition of its national importance. The castle is unusual in that it has both en suite guest accommodation like a mansion, but also a large number of gun loops.
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MacDuff's Castle is a ruined castle near East Wemyss, in Fife, Scotland. The site is associated with the MacDuff Earls of Fife, the most powerful family in Fife in the Middle Ages, although nothing survives from this period. The present ruins are the remains of the home of the Wemyss family, who lived here from the 14th century, and their successors in the 16th century.
Carpow is a diffuse hamlet in Perth and Kinross, Scotland. It is situated immediately to the east of the confluence of the River Tay and River Earn, 2 km north east of Abernethy.
Leswalt is a village and civil parish in Dumfries and Galloway, south-west Scotland. It lies between Portpatrick and Stranraer in the Rhins of Galloway, part of the traditional county of Wigtownshire. The parish covers around 8 square miles (21 km2).
Knockdavie Castle is a now-ruined 17th-century house in Burntisland parish, Fife, Scotland. The name probably derives from the Gaelic cnoc dubh -in "(place of the) black hill(ock)", with cnoc dabhoch “the hill farm” another theory. It is recorded under the alternative name of Stenhouse in 1561, which survives in the name of the modern day adjacent farmhouse. It is said to have belonged, in the seventeenth century, to a Douglas, recorded in an appendix to The Scots Worthies as an opponent of the Covenanters.
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