A village at the northern end of the Howe of the Mearns in
Aberdeenshire, Glenbervie lies between the larger villages of
Auchenblae and Drumlithie. Ancestors of the poet Robert Burns
who farmed at Clochnahill are buried in the churchyard at
Glenbervie. These tombstones were restored by the Glenbervie
Burns Memorial Committee and re-dedicated in 1968. Also of
interest in the churchyard are the remains of the ancient
Douglas aisle. The church was rebuilt in 1826 and nearby is
Glenbervie house which dates from the 17th Century. There is a
local food processing industry.
Glenbervie and its castle
by W Douglas Simpson
The historic parish of Glenbervie, with
its ancient castle and the adjoining remnant of the medieval
parish church, in the graveyard of which sleep the immediate
forebears of the poet Burns, lies at the northern apex of the
Howe of the Mearns, about 7 miles SW of Stonehaven.
The
central portion of the parish skirts the left bank of the Bervie
Water, and the rocks here belong to the Lower Old Red Sandstone,
consisting of conglomerates and softish micaceous red or yellow
sandstones with interbedded lavas, tuffs and breccias. But the
northern portion, separated by the Highland Boundary Fault, is
occupied by metamorphic rocks belonging to the Dalradian series,
and forms a barren, hilly tract - part of the sunward slopes of
the Mounth, or upland barrier separating Strathmore from Mar.
Glenbervie owes its historical significance to the fact that the
parish is traversed by one of the most important among the
ancient routes across the Mounth - the Cryne Corse Pass, leading
over from the early Christian centre at Fordoun in the Mearns to
the valley of the Lower Dee at Durris (Simpson 1943,132,133,135;
1949,20,100,119). It was by this route that Edward I advanced in
his first great invasion of Scotland in 1296. He was at
Glenbervie on the night of Thursday, 12th July, marched thence
over the mountain pass to the royal manor of Durris, with its
Norman motte, where he slept on the 13th, and next day,
Saturday, 14th July, descended the Dee valley to the royal burgh
of Aberdeen.
At the time of King Edward's visit the
manor of Glenbervie belonged to Sir John de Melville, and the
parson of its parish church was John Stowe, both of whom gave in
their submission to the all-conquering Plantagenet at the Peel
of Lumphanan on 21st July following (Jervise 1885, 146). The
Melville family are said to have come into Scotland in the reign
of David I; certainly they were settled in the Mearns by the
year 1200. Of one of them, said to have been Sheriff of the
Mearns in the reign of James I, the famous tale is told how he
so exasperated the inhabitants by his oppression that they made
him into a broth upon the Garvock Hill and shared round among
themselves the abominable brew! Sir John Melville's murder does
not seem to be in doubt, as it is stated that a pardon, or deed
of replegiation, in favour of the laird of Arbuthnott, is still
extant in the charter chest of that family. Also the murder is
referred to by another member of the • family, Alexander
Arbuthnott, Principal of King's College from 1569 until 1583
(Scott 1802,462; Cramond 1894, 20-21; Kinnear 1910, 14-17).i
In 1468 the Melville heiress of Glenbervie carried the
barony to her husband, Sir Alexander Auchinleck or Affleck, of
that Ilk in Ayrshire; and in 1492 another heiress in her turn
brought Glenbervie into the hands of the Red Douglases by her
marriage to Sir William Douglas of Braidwood, second son of Archibald,
fifth Earl of Angus- the celebrated 'Bell the Cat'. The
first Douglas laird of Glenbervie fell at Flodden. The most
famous of his line was William, who played a decisive part in
securing the victory of Corrichie on the Hill o' Fare (28th
October 1562) (Simpson 1949, 75-80), acquired the Donside barony
of Kemnay, and in 1588 succeeded as
ninth Earl of Angus.
He died at Glenbervie on 1st July 1591. In 1625 Sir William
Douglas of Glenbervie was created one of the original Baronets
of Nova Scotia. The sixth baronet, Sir Robert Douglas, was the
celebrated compiler of The Peerage of Scotland. With his son's
death in 1812 the baronetcy lapsed; but in 1831 it was revived
in favour of his nephew, Kenneth Mackenzie of Kilcry, who
thereafter assumed the style of Douglas of Glenbervie. This
second baronetcy still continues in the person of the fifth
Baronet, Sir Sholto Courtney Mackenzie Douglas, MC, who served
with distinction in both World Wars in the Seaforth Highlanders.
A member of the family was the wellknown lawyer, politician and
author,
Sylvester Douglas
(1743-1823), who in 1800 was created
Lord Glenbervie in the Irish peerage.
Long before this
time, however, in 1675, the estate of Glenbervie had been sold
by the Douglases to Robert Burnett of Leys. The connexion
between the two famous Mearns families was of old standing. Sir
Thomas Burnett, the first Baronet of Leys, had married in 1610
Margaret, eldest daughter of Sir Robert Douglas of Glenbervie.
The arms of Burnett of Leys, Douglas of Glenbervie, and
Auchinleck of that Ilk, with the initials of Sir Thomas Burnett
and Margaret Douglas, appear on a fine oaken wardrobe still
preserved at Crathes Castle. Robert Burnett who bought
Glenbervie was a cousin-german of Sir William Douglas, third
Baronet of Glenbervie, whose son Robert, to whom he had conveyed
the property, sold it to his Burnett kinsman, who soon
thereafter clinched the bargain by taking to wife Katherine, a
daughter of Sir William Douglas. The initials of Robert Burnett
and Katherine Douglas are said to be on the old Mill of
Glenbervie; but, if so, they are now concealed by ivy (Kinnear
1910, 18). The Burnetts remained in possession of Glenbervie
until 1721, when it was sold to William Nicolson of Mergie,
afterwards Sir William Nicolson, Baronet of Kemnay, these two
estates being thus once more united in the same ownership. Sir
William Nicolson was a pioneer in agricultural improvement,
being the first person in the Mearns to raise hay from seeds. In
1831 a Nicolson heiress brought the Glenbervie property to her
husband, Robert Badenach, M.D., of Arthurhouse. Their son, James
Badenach Nicolson, was a prominent and highly esteemed figure in
the public life of the Mearns during the latter part of last
century. The estate is still in the hands of the family, and the
castle is now the seat of Mrs Patience Badenach Nicolson of
Glenbervie.
No doubt there will have been a manor house
of some kind at Glenbervie at the time of King Edward's visit.
As to the later castle, the only historical event with which it
appears to have been associated was its siege by the redoubtable
'Edom o'Gordon' in 1572, during the cruel civil war between the
partisans of the deposed Queen Mary and those of her infant son,
King James VI.
Crossing the Mounth (as I conceive) by the
Cryne Corse Pass, the famous Gordon chief, at the head of a
force of infantry, and 'a fyne trowpe of chosin horsemen', laid
siege to 'the castell of Glenbervie in the Mernis'. At this time
the owner, Sir William Douglas, was absent. We are told that the
Gordons cruelly wasted the surrounding country. To raise the
siege, the forces of the Regent Mar convened at Brechin; but Sir
Adam Gordon, leaving his infantry 'in thair trenchis' about the
castle, rode off by night with his cavalry to Brechin and
surprised and scattered the Government levies (5th July 1572).
How the siege of Glenbervie Castle terminated thereafter does
not appear to be recorded (Colville 1833, 109-110; Buchanan
1582, 249; Boyd 1905, 335).
Glenbervie may be described
as a forgotten castle. None of the books on Scottish
architecture make any mention of it. Andrew Jervise even doubted
whether the old castle had occupied the site of the present
mansion (Jervise 1861, 91). In Sheriff Crabb Watt's standard
historical work on the Mearns, it is stated about 'Glenbervie
House' that 'hardly any part of the ancient castle of the
Douglases remains' (Watt 1914, xxxix). It was therefore with
astonishment that, on my first visit to Glenbervie on 25th
September 1949, I found myself in the presence of the
substantial shell of a medieval stronghold of quite remarkable
interest in respect of its design, with a vaulted basement
preserved in its entirety. It is to give an account of this
hitherto unknown old baronial edifice that the present paper has
been written.
THE CASTLE
The site of the castle is a
striking one, formed by a triangular bluff or cape of ground
enclosed by the meeting of the Pilkettie Burn with the Water of
Bervie. On two sides, N and S, the stance is thus denned by the
steep slopes of the two streams, running out to the W into the
apex formed by their junction. On the third side, towards the E,
the ground is open and level, forming a wide, pleasant expanse
of bird-haunted lawn, shadowed by fine old trees. Across the
little burn, and directly opposite the castle on the N, is the
ancient graveyard in which formerly stood the parish church,
part of whose chancel has been rebuilt to serve as the burial
place of the old Douglas lords of Glenbervie. To the W of the
castle the Water of Bervie is crossed by the old ford, still in
use, by which doubtless the army of Edward I made its northward
passage on 12th July 1296; the Cryne Corse road itself survives
as a cart track ascending thence along the left bank of the
Pilketty Burn towards the old churchyard. A short distance up
the Pilketty Burn is the ancient saw-mill, a picturesque
structure, now derelict, with its roof supporting a miniature
forest of waving ferns and grasses. The Milltown of Glenbervie,
now no longer so used, adjoins towards the West. To the E, the
Home Farm represents the former Mains of Glenbervie, the terra
mensalis which the lord of the manor retained in his own hands
to provide his table. Hard by is the old square dovecot, dated
1736. The old manse, dating in its earliest portion from about
1725, stands on the W side of the churchyard, and close to it
are the Bow Butts, where of old the parishioners practised their
archery, in obedience to an act of Parliament passed by James II
in 1457. Thus the ensemble gives us, within small compass, a
complete and vivid picture of an early manorial centre, grouped
round the familiar juxtaposition of church and castle
representing respectively the ecclesiastical and civil nuclei of
the primitive parochial organisation, so characteristic of the
Anglo-Norman penetration of Scotland. The surroundings of the
venerable mansion are most striking and romantic. The deep
gorges formed by the two streams are clad with fine timber,
while the undergrowth has all the fragrant lushness so
characteristic of the fertile soils that the Old Red Sandstone
yields in the Howe o' the Mearns.
The castle, or
Glenbervie House as it is now more usually called, has been much
altered and enlarged, apparently about 1700 and again in 1854.
The ancient portion is a remarkable and deeply interesting
structure. It forms a large oblong block, lying N and S,
straddling the tip of the promontory and forbidding access to a
narrow triangular area behind, which evidently formed a small
courtyard in rear of the main building. At either end of the
latter is a powerful round tower, with a three-quarter salient:
these towers rise from a chambered plinth. The overall
dimensions of the main block are about 72 ft by 31 ft (22 m by
9-5 m), and its frontal wall is 6 ft (1-8 m) thick: the round
towers measure about 18 ft (5-5 m) in diameter. These have
wide-mouthed gunloops, 1 ft 9 in (0-53 m) - a cubit - in
breadth, disposed so as to cover the approaches and to rake the
front of the main building between. In addition to these
horizontal gunloops on the flanks, each tower displays frontally
a vertical arrowslit, 4 ft (1-2 m) in height, with a crosslet
head and an oilette at base. The dressed margins of these
loopholes are modern, or at least have been recut.
But
their internal embrasures are ancient, and it seems probable
that the loopholes had been closed up at some unknown period,
and had been discovered and thereafter refurbished at the time
of the restoration - in much the same way as an interesting
suite of loopholes, similarly blocked and concealed behind
rough-cast, have been discovered in the recent re-harling of
Fyvie Castle. Crosslet loopholes with an oilette below are found
in Ravenscraig Castle, Aberdeenshire, licensed in 1491, and in a
group of castles in the same county, dating from the middle or
latter half of the sixteenth century (Cruden 1960, 216-17).
Midway in the fore-face of the building is the entrance. This is
now wholly modern. Over it is the Badenach Nicolson coat of
arms: or, three falcon's heads erased gules, armed azure, with
the motto Nil sisters contra. Within the entrance a modern
wooden stair on the scale-and-platt system, with a single platt,
ascends to the upper floor. Otherwise, the basement, including
the two towers, is vaulted throughout, and contains a fine suite
of cellars, with a spacious kitchen at the N end, and a corridor
of access along the W or inner face. The vaults are all of
single barrel construction, those of the cellars being
rectangular like the others. Agreeably to its greater length,
the kitchen is vaulted on the long axis of the main building,
the other vaults in which are transverse.
These vaults
are amply conceived; in particular that of the corridor is 8 ft
(2-4 m) high, and makes an impressive appearance. Owing to their
modern use as pantry and wine-cellar respectively, the vaults in
the round towers do not now reveal any trace of the embrasures
of their gunloops. The arrowslit in the N tower remains open,
and it is interesting to note that across the inside of its
crosslet head a low elliptic arch is introduced, which, while
not impeding the admission of light or the use of the loophole
by a defender, makes it difficult to shoot in from outside. This
device is not infrequently found in medieval archeres (Simpson
1961, 32). From the pantry vault hangs an iron ring, from that
of the wine cellar, now fitted up with brick bins, depends an
iron 'cleek', or double hook. The doors throughout the basement
are lintelled, with a 3 in (76 mm) chamfer on lintel and jambs.
Two small windows, one on the W and the other on the E side,
retain their iron grilles, the mode of penetration of the bars
being reversed in opposite quarters, in the characteristic
Scottish manner.
The upper parts of the house, towers and
all, have been more or less modernised, inside and outside; and,
as the walls here are comparatively thin, it seems likely that
little ancient masonry may survive above an offset which crosses
the N gable at a height of about 8 ft (2-4 m) above ground. The
N round tower retains a comely slated roof in the old style; but
the S tower is now crowned with a corbelled and crenellated
parapet in local red sandstone, dating from 1854, within which
rises a quaint round turret, capped with a conical helmet. This
turret was designed as a smoking room!
On the first floor the
internal disposition of the main block is reversed, the corridor
here extending along the E or fore-face. It gives access to two
large rooms on either side of the stair landing. The S room now
forms the dining-room, while the N is a private room. It seems
quite likely that these two rooms may represent the ancient hall
and solar or withdrawing room - the latter, as so often is the
case, being placed above the kitchen for its greater warmth.
This room retains its fine bolection-moulded panelling in red
pine - probably 'eastland boards'. At this level, the two round
towers each contain a charming circular room.
The plan
of Glenbervie Castle is most remarkable and of the highest
interest. The fact that the two round towers are placed both on
the same side of the main structure, instead of being echeloned
at diagonally opposite corners in the usual Scottish manner,
raises at once the question; what was the original plan of the
castle? It might at first glance appear that we have to deal
with the remnant of a design, perhaps never completed,
consisting of a central quadrangular courtyard enclosed by a
corps de logis with a round tower at each of the four corners.
This is a plan sometimes found in Scottish houses of the
sixteenth century, such as Boyne Castle in Banflshire (Simpson
1938, 11-28). But for such a structure the triangular site
offers insufficient room. Moreover, the corridor on the west
side runs the whole length of the building, which it would not
have done had the structure formed, or had it been intended to
form, one side of a quadrangle.
It looks, therefore, as
if we may have to deal rather with the type of building found in
Ravenscraig Castle, Fife (Simpson 1938), or Morton Castle in
Nithsdale (Simpson 1940, 26-35; 1959, 10-14), where a triangular
promontory is cut off on the only accessible side by a screen of
building thrown across it, with round towers at the free angles,
so as to command the approach. At Ravenscraig the building, thus
frontally massed, is pierced centrally by a trance giving access
to the courtyard behind. At Morton this access is gained through
a gatehouse, regularly defended, at one end of the frontal
building. On the other hand, at Glenbervie there has clearly
been no such central entrance passage leading through to the
courtyard. Inverugie Castle in Aberdeenshire, built early in the
seventeenth century by the fifth Earl Marischal, shows the same
scheme as Glenbervie, with two frontal towers and no passage
through the building between them (MacGibbon and Ross 1887-92,
324-8).
But Inverugie is a lightly built and almost
unfortified structure, and the round towers have clearly been
designed merely for effect; whereas Glenbervie is a formidable
fortalice, the round towers of which are plainly meant to
confront an attacker with defiance. In its frontal massing of
the main structure, Glenbervie takes its place among a whole
sequence of Scottish castles, from the fourteenth century
onwards - the grandest of the group being Doune in Menteith
(Simpson 1962).
It is obvious that the present wooden
stair must occupy the position of a stone predecessor, whether
on the newel or the scale-and-platt design.2 Such a central
stair would of course communicate towards the rear with the long
corridor, and thus provide the necessary connection between
these offices and the public rooms above. On every count, the
plan is a remarkable one, and it is not easy to cite precise
parallels. Something similar, however, is found at Dunbeath
Castle in Caithness, first on record apparently as the 'Castell
of Dunbeth' in 1439 (Innes 1859, 16). Here on a promontory site,
isolated from the mainland by a ditch, we have a rectangular
frontal block straddling the area from cliff to cliff. The
entrance is central, but there is no trance or through passage
leading to the courtyard behind. The basement is vaulted and
contains a kitchen and three cellars: but there is no corridor
of access, neither are there any flanking towers, which the
constricted site does not permit.
Glenbervie Castle
contains much that is valuable in portraits and other paintings,
furniture, china, glass and needlework, but these do not come
within the scope of this present study. Only one piece of the
ancient fitments of the house now remains. This is an oaken
panel, measuring 1 ft 8 in long by 10 in broad (508 mm by 254
mm). On it is carved in relief a shield of florid Renaissance
design, displaying the arms of Douglas of Glenbervie, thus:
quarterly, first and fourth, a heart (here uncrowned), on a
chief three stars for Douglas; second and third, a cross raguly,
for Auchinleck. On either side are the initials V.D., and above
the inscription 1548 | DIE: APR • 9. The lettering is extremely
good. Traces of heraldic colouring remain on the shield. The
arms are those of Sir William Douglas of Glenbervie, afterwards
the ninth Earl of Angus.
Probably the panel may have
formed the door of an aumbry, or perhaps of a tallboy or
cupboard.
Note: There is also a Glenbervie in New Zealand, which was the home of
Sir Robert Andrews Mackenzie
Douglas, 3rd Baronet
See also:
Mackenzie-Douglas of
Glenbervie
Douglas of Glenbervie
Glenbervie Church
Any contributions will be
gratefully accepted
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