Pitfichie Castle, Aberdeenshire
Photo © Colin Smith, August 1989
Pitfichie Castle, Aberdeenshire
Photo © John Aldersey-Williams, 14 May 2005
Pitfichie Castle, Aberdeenshire Photo © Colin Smith, August 1989 |
Pitfichie Castle, Aberdeenshire Photo © John Aldersey-Williams, 14 May 2005 |
Pitfichie Castle with a distant Bennachie. A ruin on Donside, about one mile north of Monymusk. In the seventeenth century it belonged to General Hurry.
PITFICHIE CASTLE
A beautiful ruin on the right bank of the Don, about a mile north of Monymusk village. It is now included in the Monymusk estates, but from about the end of the fourteenth century the lands of Pitfichie belonged to the ancient family of Hurrie, or Urrie — possibly descended from the Hugo de Urre and Maulcolum de Ouree.
In 1597 Pitfichie was sold to John Cheyne of Fortrie, whose descendants retained it until about 1650, when it was purchased by the Forbeses of Monymusk. The last-recorded inhabitants of the castle were William Forbes, eldest son of the laird of Monymusk, and his wife Lady Jane Keith, daughter of the Earl of Kintore.
Possibly the castle was occupied as a farmhouse for some years longer, but in 1796 Charles Dawson describes it as "now unroofed". The castle consists of a rectangular tower-house, 36 feet by 28, with a large round tower, 23 feet in diameter, attached to its southern corner. It may thus be regarded as an intermediate link between the simple oblong tower and the fully developed three-stepped or Z-plan, with towers echeloned at each of two opposite angles. Other examples of the two-stepped plan in Aberdeenshire are Balfluig, described in this paper — where the "flanker" is square, though modified by a circular staircase on the outer angle, — and Abergeldie on Deeside, where the "flanker" is round, as at Pitfichie.
The basement contains a guardroom in the round tower, and a kitchen and cellar, with a corridor of access, in the main building. It is vaulted throughout, and the walls here are 5 feet thick. The arched doorway in the round tower is defended by two great shot-holes with a wide outer splay, and a similar shot-hole opens from the guardroom on the opposite side of the tower. The kitchen has a large arched fireplace, an oven, and a service window to the passage. Above this were other two storeys and a garret, with a large hall, measuring 25 feet 6 inches by 22 feet, on the first floor of the main house, and a private room, with garderobe, in the tower beside it. At the north-west angle of the main house is a square corbelled turret, pierced with shot-holes which make up for the absence of a flanking tower at this angle. The flat skews of this turret are clearly alterations, no doubt replacing original crow-steps. Access to the upper storeys is given by a newel stair 4 feet wide, corbelled out as a turret between the tower and the main house. The stair is lit by a series of loops, of which; the lowest has been enlarged to form a window. Near its summit the turret is brought square by a simple moulding, and higher up is further enlarged by an effective label corbelling to form a capehouse, resting on a vault over the stair-head. The gable of this capehouse has, like that of the turret, been altered with flat skews. Originally the entrance to the castle was to have been in the re-entrant, not of the tower, but of the main house. It was apparently found that this would provide access too direct for safety to the main stair; hence the plan was modified and the present crooked passage introduced, with doorway in the round tower. The alteration was badly managed, as the passage encroaches awkwardly on both guard-room and kitchen. The original door was then blocked, and a shot-hole inserted to cover the new entrance; but its rear arch and bar-hole still remain to prove the alteration. The similarity of the shot-hole to all the others in the basement, and the fact that the whole arrangement of the plan depends on its present door, with the devious passage and guardroom and staircase adjoining, prove that the alteration was effected during erection. The date of the castle is not in evidence, but the architectural details permit of conjecture. The corbelling out of the staircase from so near the ground has a late appearance, but the external splay of the shot-holes is a primitive type, and the mouldings everywhere are purely Gothic. The tentative plan also indicates an early date, and I think the castle was erected soon after 1560. Eight yards south-west of the castle is still preserved a fragment of the barmekin. wall, with an arched gateway now used as the entrance to the farmhouse garden. The gateway is of the usual type, with a half-engaged roll moulding; but the voussoirs at the apex of the arch fell early in the year 1920, and the remaining portion is in a dangerous condition. There are some remains of a straight stair leading to a chamber in the capehouse.
There is little historic interest connected with the castle, and perhaps its chief claim to distinction rests in the fact that the son of its last Hurry laird was the famous Civil "War free-lance, Major-General Sir John Hurry, who was defeated by Montrose at Auldearn on 9th May 1645, served under his old antagonist during the last forlorn attempt of Carbiesdale, and was hanged in Edinburgh on 29th May 1650. Though he may have been born at Pitfichie, Sir John was never its laird, as has sometimes been asserted; for the property passed out of the family at a time when, if alive at all, he must have been still a bairn. He is recorded to have served in the Thirty Years' War, but the date of his birth seems unknown. On 20th January 1590, William Hurrie of Pitfichie, along with Gordon of Knockespock and others of lesser degree, swooped down on the lands of Forneidlie, belonging to Duncan Forbes, broke down the houses of two of his tenants, maltreated their wives, and actually sought to burn alive their babies "lyand in thair creddillis." They also plundered these unfortunates of sixteen draught oxen, which were driven off to Pitfichie. During the following days these raids were repeated, crops were laid waste, "moveable gear" carried off, and the poor tenants were reduced to such extremes that they were "putt to beg thair rneit." In the end Forbes lodged protest with the Privy Council, and the offenders were duly outlawed. Later two of the party are minuted as giving submission, but the outcome of the affair is not further known.
NOTES ON FIVE DONSIDE CASTLES. BY W. DOUGLAS SIMPSON, 1921