Vayne Castle, Angus
Photo © Anne Burgess, 16 April 2008
Vayne Castle - Photo ©
Anne Burgess, 16 April 2008
Vayne Castle, Angus
Photo © Anne Burgess 16 April 2008
Vayne Castle, Angus Photo © Anne Burgess, 16 April 2008 |
Vayne Castle - Photo © Anne Burgess, 16 April 2008 |
Vayne Castle, Angus Photo © Anne Burgess 16 April 2008 |
There is still a substantial ruin here, of which this eastern tower is the most complete. It stands in a good defensive position above the deep glen of the Noran Water, which is between the castle and the trees beyond.
Vayne Castle is built of the local Old Red Sandstone. There seems to have been a door at ground level in the round tower at left, which has both a lintel and a strengthening arch above it. It may be that the ground level is much higher than it was when the castle was occupied, and that this door was actually at first floor level and protected by a drawbridge, as it is almost unheard of for castles of this age to have ground floor entrances. This doorway has subsequently been partly built up. To its right is what may have been a window, with lintel and arch above, and a large gunloop below. In the angle between the door and window is a corbel which was probably the foot of another spiral stair well. The stone has clearly been shaped by a skilled hand.
The 16th century castle was a stronghold of the Lindsays, who held the barony of Fern or Vayne from the 15th century. The ruins were quarried for stone to build the farm house and buildings, which can be glimpsed to the right of the east tower.
VAYNE CASTLE, Forfarshire.
A ruin in the parish of Fearn, situated about six miles west from Brechin. It stands on the banks of the Noran Water, and has been a fine specimen of the Z Plan (Fig. 640), with two opposite angle towers, one round and the other square. The structure is now in a state of complete ruin, having been made the quarry from which the stones for building the adjoining farm-steading of Vayne were procured. The ground floor was all vaulted, and, which is rather an uncommon arrangement, there are two entrance doorways in that floor. One of these leads into the south-west round tower, which contained tlie main staircase up to the first floor, and from which a passage led to the other ground floor apartments. The other door is in the south front of the main building. A turret containing a wheel-stair, and rising from the ground, is inserted in the recess between the north-east tower and the main building, and another stair turret was corbelled out at the first floor level in the angle adjoining the south-west round tower. Apparently a private stair in the north-west corner descended from the hall to the ground floor. Vayne Castle is designed on exactly the same principles as Claypotts Castle in the same county. It is a little larger than Claypotts, and was probably not quite so picturesque; but of this the hand of the destroyer has hardly left us the means of judging, as but little that is interesting in the exterior now remains. The sculptured tympanum, along with two others, are built into the walls of a farm-steading.
The barony of Vayne came into the possession of the Lindsays apparently in the early part of the fifteenth century, and the castle was built by them. This style of plan prevailed during the latter half of the sixteenth century.
The barony was sold by the Lindsays to the Southesk family, at what time seenis uncertain, but at all events not less than twenty years before the date of the inscription on the stones given above.
The Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland by David Macgibbon and Thomas Ross, 1889