Finavon Castle

Finavon Castle stands ruinous on the banks of the River South Esk, about five miles north-east of Forfar in Angus. The estate was held from 1375 by the Lindsay Earls of Crawford, who raised the original castle, and excavation has shown that the tower whose remains survive — dating to around 1600 — was an addition set at the north-east corner of a far older and more extensive medieval building thought to reach back to about 1200. In its later form it was an L-plan tower-house of five storeys with a garret and courtyard. Life here turned on martial exercise, hunting and the baronial banquet. In 1546 David Lindsay, tenth Earl of Crawford, married Margaret, daughter of Cardinal David Beaton, within these walls. Mounting debts eventually forced the family to sell the barony in 1625 to Alexander Lindsay, second Lord Spynie, after which the property passed through the Carnegie, Gordon and Gardynes families. The castle was designated a scheduled monument in October 2000. Close by stand two further landmarks of the estate: the great Finavon doocot, said to be Scotland’s largest with some 2,400 nesting boxes, and Finavon Hill, an Iron Age vitrified hillfort on the ridge above.