Edinample Castle is a late 16th-century

tower house A tower house is a particular type of stone structure, built for defensive purposes as well as habitation. Tower houses began to appear in the Middle Ages, especially in mountainous or limited access areas, in order to command and defend strateg ...

on the southern shores of

Loch Earn Loch Earn (Scottish Gaelic language, Scottish Gaelic, ''Loch Eire/Loch Éireann'') is a freshwater loch in the southern Scottish Highlands, highlands of Scotland, in the districts of Perth and Kinross and Stirling (council area), Stirling. Th ...

near Balquhidder in the

Stirling Stirling (; sco, Stirlin; gd, Sruighlea ) is a city in central Scotland, northeast of Glasgow and north-west of Edinburgh. The market town, surrounded by rich farmland, grew up connecting the royal citadel, the medieval old town with its me ...

council area {{Unreferenced, date=May 2019, bot=noref (GreenC bot) A council area is one of the areas defined in Schedule 1 of the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994 and is under the control of one of the local authorities in Scotland created by that Act. ...

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. It was designated as a

Category A listed This is a list of Category A listed buildings in Scotland, which are among the listed buildings of the United Kingdom. For a fuller list, see the pages linked on List of listed buildings in Scotland. Key The organization of the lists in th ...

building in 1971.

History

The estate was granted to

Colin Campbell Colin may refer to: * Colin (given name) * Colin (surname) * ''Colin'' (film), a 2008 Cannes film festival zombie movie * Colin (horse) (1905–1932), thoroughbred racehorse * Colin (humpback whale), a humpback whale calf abandoned north of Sydney, ...

, 6th Laird of Glenorchy in 1547 by

Henry Stewart, 1st Lord Methven Henry Stewart, 1st Lord Methven (c. 1495 – 1552) was Master of the Scottish Artillery and third, and last husband, of Margaret Tudor, eldest daughter of Henry VII of England and Elizabeth of York. Ancient lineage He was a son of Andrew Stewa ...

and his son, 'Black Duncan',

Duncan Campbell of Glenorchy Sir Duncan Campbell, 1st Baronet of Glenorchy (1545-1631) was a Scottish landowner and courtier. Career He was a son of Colin Campbell of Glenorchy and Katherine Ruthven. She was a daughter of William Ruthven, 2nd Lord Ruthven and Janet Haliburt ...

, (''Donnchadh Dubh'') probably built the castle in 1584.

Description

The castle takes the form of a Z-plan tower house and most likely incorporates an earlier tower in its eastern side. The rectangular main block measures and is three

storey A storey (British English) or story (American English) is any level part of a building with a floor that could be used by people (for living, work, storage, recreation, etc.). Plurals for the word are ''storeys'' (UK) and ''stories'' (US). T ...

s and an

attic An attic (sometimes referred to as a '' loft'') is a space found directly below the pitched roof of a house or other building; an attic may also be called a ''sky parlor'' or a garret. Because attics fill the space between the ceiling of the ...

high. Circular

bartizan A bartizan (an alteration of ''bratticing''), also called a guerite, ''garita'', or ''échauguette'', or spelled bartisan, is an overhanging, wall-mounted turret projecting from the walls of late medieval and early-modern fortifications from the ...

s are

corbel In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applied to the s ...

led out at the north and south corners at the second-storey level. Four-storey round towers, roughly in diameter, are at the northwestern and southeastern corners. Circular stair towers are corbelled out at the first-storey level at the northern junctures with the main block. The interior and the roofs were remodelled around 1790. Sometime during the 18th or 19th century a two-storey porch and stairway was built against the northern face of the castle. A single-storey U-plan corrugated-iron structure was erected in 1870 on the eastern side, probably as an office. In the early 20th century a five-storey addition was built, completely enclosing the southeastern tower. The castle fell into a state of dereliction by the 1960s, but it was renovated for use as a private family home from about 1968–1998 by a series of owners. As part of the remodelling, all of the external additions, except for the office, were demolished. Edinample Castle is now a private family home and therefore the adjacent grounds, including Edinample Falls, are excluded from 'Right to Roam' access rights which are not exercisable according to Section 6 of The Land Reform (Scotland) Act 2003.

References

External links

Clan MacGregor - information on the castle

{{coord, 56.3755, -4.2657, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Castles in Stirling (council area) Category A listed buildings in Stirling (council area) Listed castles in Scotland Houses in Stirling (council area) Tower houses in Scotland