Barra Castle
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Barra Castle is an unusual L-plan tower house dating from the early 16th century, about two miles (three kilometres) south of Oldmeldrum, above the Lochter Burn, in the parish of Bourtie,[1] Aberdeenshire, Scotland.[2] It occupies the site of the Battle of Inverurie (1308), in which Robert Bruce defeated John Comyn, Earl of Buchan.[2]
A castle on this site was, from the mid-13th century, the seat of the King family.[1]
An earlier castle associated with the hereditary Forester and Coroner of the Garioch, a Blackhall,[3] may be incorporated in the main block and south-eastern wing, but the present castle owes its form mainly to George Seton, chancellor of the University of Aberdeen, Tutor and Vicar of Meldrum[3] who was granted the estate in 1598.[2] A charter of 1599 to George Seton, tutor of Meldrum, mentions the erection of the lands of Barra as a free barony, while a charter of 1615, ordains that the 'fortalice of Barra' is to be the chief seat of the barony.[3]
James Reid, an Aberdeen advocate,[3] was in possession of the estate by 1630, and the Reid family retained it until 1754. Dame Margaret Abercrombie, the wife of John Reid (who was made a baronet in 1703), refitted parts of the house; she may be responsible for the fireplace in the Great Hall.[2]
The purchaser in 1754 was John Ramsay of Melrose, a merchant trading in Russia,[3] who added the north wing, and his descendants still own it; a Ramsay heiress married Andrew Irvine,[3] one of the Irvines of Drum, early in the 20th century.[2] John Ramsay preferred his estate at Straloch, and after his death in 1787 the property came to be used as a farmhouse. It was restored as a dower house, to plans by George Bennet Mitchell, in the first decade of the twentieth century.[2]
