Duntarvie Castle

Duntarvie Castle, West Lothian
Photo © Richard Webb, 10 February 2008

This castle has been being renovated for about 20 years and still has a lot of work to be completed

--DUNTARVIE CASTLE, LINLITHGOWSHIRE.

This building, situated near the Winchburgh Railway Station, is an example of the houses built in the seventeenth century, showing how modern taste and feeling were gradually overcoming the old forms and arrangements. Externally there is a good deal of the old character in the back elevation, with its angle towers and corbelled staircase turrets, and chimney. The front or south elevation also still retains its moulded string-course, broken round the panel for the coat of arms over the door. But there are observable many signs of the new regime. Thus, the doorway is placed about the centre of the south front, and the building is balanced on each side of it. There is the same effort after symmetry in the back elevation, with its two corresponding towers and angle turrets. That these towers are so designed for the purpose of symmetry only is clear from the plan, which shows that the internal arrangements at each end are different, and that no tower is needed at the west end.

The internal arrangements likewise generally hold a good deal to the old forms, but with a new meaning. The ground floor is all vaulted and lighted with small windows. The kitchen at the east end has the usual large fireplace and chimney, but it has also the unusual pertinents of a separate scullery and back door. The western portion contains cellars and a small room entering from the outside, which may have been a garden house.

The straight stair in one flight is what was frequently adopted early in the seventeenth century, as at Drum, Craigievar, Northfield, etc. This leads to the two principal public rooms on the first floor, with a separate entrance to each. These may in this house be regarded as almost identical with the modern dining-room and drawing-room. The former at the west end has direct communication with the kitchen below by the central stair, and with the wine-cellar by the usual small private stair at the west end, where there are also two private rooms. The two spiral stairs, corbelled out in the angles of the towers, conduct to bedrooms at the east and west ends, and in the towers, while a third spiral stair leads from the hall, over the entrance door, to the central bedroom, a separate access being thus provided to each chamber, as in the older castles, such as Elcho. There is as yet no main staircase, with corridor of communication.

It has been intended to carry a wing southwards from the west end, which would have increased the symmetrical effect of the south front.

The surroundings of Duntarvie are interesting. On all sides there are remains of carefully arranged pleasure-gardens, with fine trees and shady walks, but they are now entirely abandoned, and the house, having passed through the stage of occupation by farm servants, is fast falling into decay.

Dr. Robert Chambers, in his Domestic Annals of Scotland, vol. ii. p. 26, mentions that in 1628 the Marchioness of Abercorn was confined in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh for nonconformity. This loathsome prison "procured her many heavy diseases," to remedy which licence was granted her ladyship to visit the baths of Bristol. After being there cured, she had to submit to six months' further restraint in the Canongate Jail, but was subsequently permitted to reside at Duntarvie, on condition that "she sail contein herself therein so warily and respectively as she sail not fall under the break of any of his Majesty's laws." The Marchioness thereafter resided at Duntarvie for a considerable time.

THE CASTELLATED AND DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE OF SCOTLAND BY DAVID MACGIBBON AND THOMAS ROSS, 1889--