Auchinleck Castle - Photo ©
Leslie Barrie, 3 August 2008
Auchinleck Castle, Angus
Photo © Leslie Barrie, 3 August 2008
Auchinleck Castle - Photo © Leslie Barrie, 3 August 2008 |
Auchinleck Castle, Angus Photo © Leslie Barrie, 3 August 2008 |
Perched precariously on the cliff top are the fragmentary remains of Auchinleck Castle, dating from around the 14th century and seat of the Auchinlecks. With it's cliff top location and being sited between the Lugar Water & Dippol Burn, the castle's natural defences are highly impressive.
The Auchinlecks held the property from 1292 till the very close of the fifteenth
century, when the Boswells became proprietors. The latter family had settled
in Scotland whilst David I. occupied the throne (1124 - 1153), and their earliest
location as landowners was at Balmuto, in Fifeshire, where the elder branch
of the family is still represented. Sir John Boswell, or Boisivill, obtained
the barony of Balmuto
through his marriage with Mariota, daughter of Sir John Glen; and his grandson,
David Boswell of Balmuto, was the father of the first of that name in Auchinleck.
Thomas Boswell was a favourite at the court of James IV., and when the lands
of Auchinleck were forfeited to the Crown, they were bestowed by the King upon
this highly-valued companion. It was the misfortune of the latter to share the
fate of his master at Flodden Field; but the family became connected with some
of the foremost of the nobility of Scotland through the marriage of his only
son and successor, David Boswell of Auchinleck, with Lady Janet Hamilton, daughter
of the first Earl of Arran, and great-grand-daughter of James II.
Auchinleck House, 3 miles west of the town, was erected by the judge Lord Auchinleck, father of the biographer of Dr. Johnson. A ruined baronial fortalice, the residence of the early Boswells from the time of James IV., stands in that mansion's neighbourhood
Monikie is a village in Angus, Scotland, which takes its name from the former Parish of Monikie. The village grew from small beginnings as just one of many hamlets. The other large village in the former Parish of Monikie is Newbigging. Because of the siting of the Railway Station, provided mainly to service the farming community and latterly, the Farina Mill or Granary, and the former reservoir ponds for Dundee City Council (now Monikie Country Park), the concentration has centred around the area which became Monikie village, mainly as a result of a new house building programme in the 1970s and 1980s.
The Scottish violinist and fiddler James Scott Skinner lived in Monikie from 1906 to 1909.
It is wrong to think of Monikie as only the village but, as a legacy of the former parish name, it is still relevant in most of the addresses in this rural area, stretching from Hynd Castle in the north, to the coast of the Firth of Tay at the south. Its population, as of 1991, was 479. Monikie is the northernmost Church Of Scotland parish of the Presbytery of Dundee, but changes have occurred.
It is the location of Affleck Castle, formerly Auchinleck Castle, which stands on the western outskirts of the village toward the centre of the former parish. It consists of a tower built on high ground. The castle was inhabited as late as 1746, although it has since been used as a granary. The 17th-century Panmure House, seat of the Earl of Panmure, was located to the east of the village, although it was demolished in the 1950s. Only the stables and the 105-foot (32 m) Panmure Testimonial remain on the estate, as well as the remains of the earlier Panmure Castle.
THE CASTLES AND MANSIONS OF AYRSHIRE 1885
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