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 Located
at Easter Elcho, Rhynd in Perth and Kinross, Elcho Castle was built in the
latter half of the 16th century for the Wemyss family, whose descendents
still own it, although it is now in the care of Historic Scotland.
Overlooking the River Tay, the tower-shaped castle has many original
features, including the ruins of the courtyard, the chapel and a round
tower with kiln.
Elcho has been in the ownership of the Wemyss family for five and a half
centuries, if not longer. It was part of the possessions confirmed to Sir
John Wemyss of Wemyss by James III in 1468, and is still owned by
the earls of Wemyss. The date when the present castle began to be built is
uncertain, though it was probably in the third quarter of the sixteenth
century. We know that the lands were confirmed to Sir John Wemyss in 1552,
and this may have been a way of ensuring that his title to it was sound
before he started a major campaign of rebuilding. He was certainly able to
sign a charter at Elcho in 1558, though that does not necessarily mean
that the new house was complete, since there must already have been a
house on the site before the one we now see. However, there is a record
that in 1570 the laird of Wemyss owed the late Thomas Bryson or Boynting
the sum of £7 for ironwork, and it is tempting to suspect that this was
for the wrought iron grilles or yetts at the windows and main doorway, and
that the main work was complete by then.
The house we now see was never intended to stand in isolation, and work on
the ancillary buildings associated with it probably continued over several
generations to meet changing requirements. The remains of a range which
ran along one side of the main courtyard of the castle have the initials
IEW on the gable, perhaps in reference to John earl of Wemyss. The earldom
was created for him by Charles I in 1633 and he died in 1649. Around the
house and the courtyards immediately associated with it would have been a
small dependent township, of which the modem farm and houses in the area
are the successors. There was a small boat anchorage below the castle at
the junction of the River Tay with the bum which runs down the east side
of the castle. Boats may also have been able to enter the quarry
immediately north of the castle, which used to be flooded and connected to
the river by a short cut.
It is not certain when the castle ceased to be a principal residence of
the Wemyss family, though it was perhaps after the seventh earl acquired
the Gosford estate, in East Lothian, in 1781. Elcho probably housed
tenants and farm labourers after it was no longer used by members of the
family. Nevertheless, it continued to be important to the Wemyss family
since, until quite recently, the heirs of the earls of Wemyss bore the
title of Lord Elcho. It was re-roofed in about 1830 by the eighth earl,
and it was probably around the same time that the cottage on the west side
of the courtyard was built. The eleventh earl placed the castle in the
care of the state in 1929, and it is now cared for by Historic Scotland on
behalf of the Secretary of State for Scotland.
Elcho was built at a period when domestic comfort, convenience and
privacy were coming to be regarded as increasingly desirable by the
greater landholders. Yet the times were not yet so settled that it was
wise to dispense completely with the means of defending oneself from the
attacks of rivals, while the trappings of defensibility might also be seen
as something of a status symbol associated with land holding. What we see
at Elcho, therefore, is a fascinatingly ingenious response to these
differing needs, which provided its fortunate occupants with accommodation
of a very high standard together with a considerable degree of security.
The walls are mainly of rubble masonry, much of which may have been taken
from the quarry to the north of the house, while the dressings to the
windows, doorways and corners are of dressed ashlar. Originally, of
course, all of this would have been covered by lime render, masking any
irregularities that are now evident, and slight traces of this render may
still be seen.
Towards the entrance courtyard on its south side, the house
presented an elongated facade with a square entrance tower at its western
angle. Although not symmetrical this facade was carefully composed to give
an appearance of measured regularity. At the wall head the massing was
enlivened by a restrained display of turrets, dormers and conically-roofed
turrets. The tower, which had the only entrance to the house at its base,
was the only part of the house to have an open wall-walk behind a parapet,
giving it externally something of the appearance of a distinct
tower-house.
Thee flanks of the
courtyard in front of the house were probably originally defined by
ranges, of which part of that on the west survives. At the south-eastern
angle of the courtyard, behind the modern house, is a round tower from
which it was possible to fire along the adjoining courtyard walls, and
there may have been similar towers at the other angles. There were
probably further courtyards to contain ancillary buildings such as stables
and farm buildings, and there would also have been gardens and orchards.
Immediately to the north of the castle, where there is the quarry, there
was no need for defensive walls. The face of the house overlooking the
quarry is much less regular than that towards the courtyard, with three
unequally spaced towers along its length; dearly there was less effort to
create impressive architecture here, and it is on this side that most of
the latrine chutes are concentrated; nevertheless, the results are
attractive to modern eyes.
The single entrance doorway at the base of the south-west tower opened
onto the spacious spiral main stair within the tower, which rose no higher
than the principal rooms on the first floor. Members of the family and
their visitors would proceed straight up the stair to that level, because
the whole of the ground floor was occupied by the kitchen and associated
larders and storerooms. These are all covered by stone vaulting which
created a fire-proof barrier and gave greater structural strength to the
building as a whole. Piercing the walls of the ground floor are seventeen
gun-loops which would have effectively discouraged .11 but the most
persistent unwanted visitors. In the sills of some of these loops are
wooden battens with a central hole, which would have allowed the hand-held
guns to be swivelled through the splayed mouth of the opening. Though
there are windows at this level, they are smaller than those at the upper
levels and stoutly barred. The kitchen is the first of the rooms to open
off the corridor along the courtyard side of the ground floor. It has a
large arched fireplace, within which most of the cooking took place over
an open fire, and at the back of which is a domed bread oven. From the
store-room next to the kitchen a spiral service stair led to the upper
storeys of the house, allowing servants to carry food both to the hall and
bedchambers.
The main room on the first floor was the hall , a splendidly
proportioned space warmed by a fireplace in the south wall. The entrance
end of the hall was almost certainly partitioned off by a timber draft
screen, which would have left the fireplace centrally positioned within
the hall. Opening off the screened-off vestibule was a small storage room
and two of the three stairs which interconnected the upper storeys of both
the main block and the two towers at the west end of the building, though
one of those stairs does not open onto both of the upper storeys in the
main block. The hall was lit by four large windows which would have had
glazing in their upper parts and wooden shutters behind; externally these
windows had massive grilles as a security measure. Originally the walls of
the hall were plastered.
Opening off the far end of the hall was the doorway to the rooms which
probably served as the lodging of the owner. The main room was a large
square chamber, with a smaller inner chamber beyond; within the inner
chamber was a mural latrine, with a chute leading down to a cess chamber
on the rear side of the house. This lodging was the finest in the house,
and there are traces of an elaborate plaster cornice which was added at
the junction of the wall and ceiling, probably in the early seventeenth
century. When furnished, adorned with hangings and with a fire burning in
the fireplace, it must have provided delightful accommodation for the
owner of the house.
But many of the other
lodgings and bedchambers on the two upper floors of the castle must have
been almost as handsome, and one of the great delights for visitors to
Elcho is to try to understand the ways in which the planning on those
levels would have functioned. Allowance must be made for missing
partitions of timber and plaster which subdivided the two levels above the
hall, and for timber lobbies which were once devised around some of the
doorways that opened off the stairways. When this is done, it can be seen
that there were a number of individual chambers, while other chambers also
had inner chambers or closets. The scale of these varied considerably, and
in some cases floor levels were carefully modified to achieve the best
proportions. But all of them had separate access from one of three spiral
staircases, so that their occupants could have complete privacy, and all
of them were- provided with a fireplace and a latrine. Most of these rooms
would have been for members of the Wemyss family, their guests and
important members of their household. We must assume that, apart from body
servants who slept on truckle beds or in the inner closets, the other
servants would have been accommodated within the courtyard buildings.
The ingenuity on the part of the designer of Elcho that was needed to
achieve such well-contrived planning is quite remarkable; indeed, there
are few modem houses which could afford so many occupants so much space
and so many amenities.
Text by Richard Fawcett, 1997
Information
kindly supplied by Scot Travel |
