Saltcoats Castle

Saltcoats Castle, East Lothian
Photo © Lisa Jarvis, 3 August 2006

Late 16th century ruin of tower house and courtyard. The tower has 5 stories remaining with an arch bridging at the 5th stage. The castle was still inhabited about 1790 but most of the building was removed for agricultural improvements about 1823-4.

SALTCOATS CASTLE, Haddingtonshire.

The ruins of what has once been an extensive structure, situated near the village of Gullane, and surrounded with ground formerly a marsh. From the scanty fragments which remain, it is evident that it has been a structure of remarkable design. The west front is flanked by two dumpy round towers, which at a short distance above the ground are corbelled out to a square form, and are united above the second floor by a bold circular arch, which casts a deep shadow into the recess.

Immediately over the arch a close set row of gargoyles project along the whole width of the fi-ont. Above this height the wall is quite ruinous. The main body of the structure measures 64 feet 3 inches inside, and extended eastwards behind this front building, and formed the south side of a large courtyard, but of this mansion only the south wall remains with portions of the other walls. The ground floor was vaulted, and seems to have been divided into large apartments, as shown by dotted lines on the Plan. An entrance doorway adjoined the north-west tower. The line of the east gable wall is continued northwards for 40 feet, and formed the east side of the courtyard. A row of buildings at right angles to the latter, and parallel to the main block of the castle, formed the north side of the courtyard. Of the erections on this side the only one now remaining is a kitchen, a vaulted apartment measuring about 18 feet by 13 feet 7 inches, with a fine arched fireplace extending the full width of the kitchen by 6 feet in depth, having a round oven at one end and a small window in the gable. About ten yards west from the towers is the well, and it is probable that the courtyard extended sufficiently far to include it. The main block of the castle has been two stories high, with an attic floor above. The principal entrance doorway has been removed, and nothing now remains to determine how the first floor was reached. We were informed by the old tenant that the entrance doorway was situated in the north wall of the south side of the courtyard, and that there was a hand- some square staircase opposite it. From the first floor to the attic there is a wheel-stair in the south tower, and from the attics upwards a turret stair led to the various upper floors in the western towers. These were probably three or four in number. It is a melancholy fact, although too common to excite surprise, that this fine and picturesque structure, which remained entire till about 1810, was used during the next ten years as a quarry for farm-steadings and field dykes. We find from the LajnjJ of Lothian that the castle was inhabited till about the end of the eighteenth century, when its last tenant, Mrs. Carmichael {alias Menzies), died there. It is said by Mr. Millar that, in the process of demolition, the "stones were found so firmly cemented together that they were compared to having been 'sheathed in steel.'"

The castle belonged, and, as the arms about to be referred to probably show, was built by a family of the name of Livington. Mr. Millar states that "about the beginning of the last century (the eighteenth) the estate was acquired by John Hamilton of Pencaitland, who married Margaret Menzies, the heiress of Saltcoats."

A panel, built into a cottage adjoining the castle, contains the arms of Livington or Lethington of Saltcoats, described by Nisbet as "an ancient family in East Lothian." He states that their armorial seal (which he had seen) bore "a bend with an otter's (or boar's) head, couped in chief, with the circumscription round it, 'Sig. Patricii Livingtoun de Saltcoat, 1593.'" In the above panel these arms impale those of the Fawsides — viz., a fesse between three besants. On either side of the shield are the initials of Peter Livington and his wife, Margaret Fettis of Fawside. Beneath is the forged date of 1390 — the real date being probably 1590.

The castle has been surrounded by an extensive garden and orchard, the enclosing wall of which still survives. On the lintel of a door in the north wall of the garden there is engraved the following inscription, 16-G.L-95, thus showing that the wall was built by G. Livington in 1695. To the outside of the garden on the east lay the bowling green and pleasure grounds, some traces of which are still discernible.

Reference

The Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland by David Macgibbon and Thomas Ross, 1889