A residence for newly-weds
Balvaird offers a fine illustration of the way in which a 16th-century landowner’s fortified house could provide a good degree of security for its occupants while at the same time affording them a high level of comfort. We do not know who built the impressive four-storey tower house. However, heraldry above the tower’s front entrance bears the impaled arms of Sir Andrew Murray and Dame Margaret Barclay, heiress of the baronies of Arngask and Kippo, which included Balvaird. Perhaps they built it as their marital home following their wedding, around 1495.
A complete tower-house castle
Balvaird is unusual among Scottish tower houses in that it retains all the elements that comprised a residence of the landed gentry in the late Middle Ages. Many tower houses now stand alone, but at Balvaird the visitor can see the tower house in its full context. It is surrounded by outer and inner courtyards, each with its requisite service buildings (now represented mostly by wall footings only), a formal walled garden (today without its planting), and a large walled ‘pleasance’, or park, where the family could indulge in leisure pursuits such as archery and hawking.
A sophisticated tower house
The L-planned tower house is a sophisticated structure, with features setting it apart from many of its contemporaries. The stair tower, for example, is adroitly positioned in the angle between the main rectangular block and the wing to its south, so that the spiral stair didn’t take up valuable room within the house itself. Then there is the internal planning, where the wing is used to provide each floor with an additional room. Also of interest is the clever positioning of the privies, all at the W junction of the main block and wing so that they can feed into one single waste chute. This was ingeniously flushed out by rainwater collected in a tank (now gone) placed on the battlements. Add to these the fine fireplace and elaborate aumbry (wall cupboard) in the first-floor hall, and we have in Balvaird a tower house that was in advance of its time.
On to better things
The Murrays of Balvaird were the forebears of the family that eventually acquired the titles of Lord Balvaird, Viscount Stormont and Earl of Mansfield. As they began to climb the aristocratic ladder, they extended and remodelled the house of Sir Andrew and Dame Margaret. Then, once the 2nd Lord Balvaird succeeded as 4th Viscount Stormont in 1658, they preferred the gentler setting of Scone, north of Perth, for their principal residence. Gradually, Balvaird declined in importance. It latterly ended up as a home for landless farm labourers rather than landed gentry.
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Balvaird Castle