The scant remains of Hallyards Castle are located immediately to the North-east of the sewerage works at Newbridge, between Huly Hill and Kirkliston, West of the Catstane and Edinburgh Airport.
Hallyards in the C19th (MacGibbon & Ross, 1887-1892)
The small farming village of Hallyards still exists, just to the North of the castle site, and presumably constitutes the main area of the estate lands. The castle used to stand in a small wooded area known locally in recent times as Castle Wood, but when the airport runway was extended West around 1975, much of that wood was cleared and the remaining significant parts of the castle were demolished, despite the fact that the runway doesn't extend as far as the site itself.
The Hallyards Castle Mound, Looking East Towards the Airport
Hallyards was also the home in the early seventeenth century of one of Scotland's most important Renaissance lute music collections, known as the Skene Manuscript.
Click here for a location map provided by StreetMap. Click here for an aerial photograph provided by Multimap.
Hallyards is generally listed as a seventeenth century rectangular fortified house, possibly from around 1630, on account of an inscription still visible in the nineteenth century.[1] The prominent family of Skene had associations with Hallyards, and quite probably built the seventeenth century house at least. According to Adam Duncan Tait, writing in the second Statistical Account of Scotland in 1845:
Among eminent characters connected with the parish, may be mentioned Skene of Hallyards, unhappily distinguished by his zeal in persecuting the Covenanters.[2]
Presumably, Tait refers in the above to the first Skene to own Hallyards, John Skene, who took the barony in 1614, which suggests a house or castle earlier than 1630. However, John was not the first Skene with Lothian connections, being the second son of the sixteenth century lawyer, Sir John Skene of Curriehill (d.1617) who owned lands in Currie on the Northern slopes of the Pentland Hills. Skene of Curriehill was appointed King's Advocate and later Lord of Session and Lord Clerk Register, and took part in many trials against alleged witches, a particular obsession of his king, James VI.
The Skenes were originally from the North-east, and a Robert de Skene received a charter in 1318 from Robert the Bruce establishing the Skene lands in Aberdeenshire as a barony. The family motto is Virtutis Regia Merces ("A palace the reward of bravery"), and the family crest is an arm holding a laurel wreath. The oldest surviving family property is Skene House in Aberdeenshire which was originally a fourteenth century tower house rebuilt in 1680, with further eighteenth century additions. However, the majority of the house now dates from extensive rebuilding between 1847-50. Click here for a location map.
Skene House, Aberdeenshire
The Skene of Hallyards coat of arms was registered in 1672, and a John Skene apparently had connections with the Canadian colonies, founding Skeneborough on the shores of Lake Champlain. Other notable Skenes included Gilbert Skene (d.1599), Professor of Medicine at King's College, Aberdeen, author of the reputedly earliest Scottish medical text, A Brief Description of the Pest (1568), and doctor to James VI. In the seventeenth century, the Skenes appear to have remained loyal to the Stuart monarchy, which is reflected in Tait's comments above about Skene of Hallyards "persecuting" the Protestant Convenanters. The Hallyards Skenes effectively became the heirs of the entire Skene dynasty around 1872. However, to add to the ambiguity in the scant references to Hallyards, there was another Hallyards Castle in Fife (later known as Camilla Castle) and again, owned by the Skene family in this period. Indeed, in the eighteenth century, the Fife Hallyards became a central meeting-point for the Jacobite cause, although other members of the family appear to have been Quakers, rather than Catholics or Episcopalians. The nineteenth century Celtic antiquarian and historian, William Forbes Skene, was descended from the old noble family, and appointed Historiographer of Scotland in 1881. The Clan Skene Association homepage is here: www.clanskene.org
Yet there are other possible references to the Lothian estate of Hallyards existing prior to 1630, not least that in John Knox's Historie of the Reformatioun of Scotland, regarding a visit there by James V in 1542:
Cuming to the Hallyards [he] was humainlie ressavit of the Ladie of Grange, ane antient and godlie Matrene (the Laird at his cuming was absent). In his Cumpany was only with him William Kirkaldie, now Laird of Grange, and sum uther that waytit upoun his Chalmer.[3]
This reference, not least in the context of it forming part of Knox's account of the birth of Mary Stuart at nearby Linlithgow, and the location of the sixteenth century Grange House in Edinburgh, is likely to be to the Lothian Hallyards, and not to the other Hallyards Castle in Fife. However, although Knox also subsequently states that James' next stop was Falkland Palace in Fife, the Grange estate which he refers to is unlikely to be those of either Grange House or West Grange in Fife, which are both eighteenth century houses. Equally, James was on his way back North after the events of Solway Moss, and this would place the Lothian Hallyards almost directly on his route to Falkland. If the Knox reference is indeed to the Lothian Hallyards, then, one assumes, the king would not have stayed there unless an estate, with a noble house of some description already existed in 1542. Furthermore, according to CANMORE, there are also references to Hallyards as the manor of the barony of Liston in 1579 and 1619. It would seem fairly clear, then, despite the ambiguities present in the sources, that in the seventeenth century, the Skenes acquired an estate already established in the sixteenth century. Whether or not the seventeenth century castle was built on the site of the possible earlier manor is not currently known.
The castle was apparently already badly decayed in the nineteenth century, and the Ordnance Survey map for 1853 shows it as a ruin, without giving its shape or extent. According to MacGibbon and Ross, writing towards the end of the nineteenth century:
It is an oblong in plan, with a circular stair turret projecting in the middle of the east side. This turret also contains the entrance doorway, over which is a panel which formerly no doubt contained the arms of the owner. The ground floor comprised a vaulted kitchen at the south end, with the usual large fireplace, having an oven at one end and the water drain at the other. The rest of this floor seems to have consisted of vaulted cellars. The first floor was divided into two apartments, forming the hall and private room. Above this were two floors of bed-rooms, the upper one lighted by dormers. A small stair led from the second to the third floor so as to permit of the space in the turret being used as bedrooms on the upper floors. The building bears the date 1630, and its style corresponds with that of the period. The windows are large and surrounded with architraves. The doorway has a bold architrave, with frieze and cornice above. The south-east angle of the structure is finished in a peculiar manner, having a carefully constructed cavetto, corbelled out to the square near the eaves. Angle turrets are wanting, but the crow-steps on the gables are still in use.
In the Memorials of the Family of Skene [Aberdeen: New Spalding Club, 1887] there is given a sketch of Hallyards, by the late Mr. Skene of Rubislaw, showing the building entire, and the date 1630 over one of the windows. The house appears to have been built by Mr. John Skene, the first proprietor of that family, who was the second son of Sir John Skene of Curriehill, Lord Clerk-Register. Sometime after 1624 the lands and barony of Hallyards were acquired by the former, who was the author of a collection of old Scottish airs, printed by the Bannatyne Club. He died in 1644. His grandson entered into unsuccessful speculations and became insolvent. The estate was then purchased by his brother Thomas, who resold it in 1696 to Mr. Marjoribanks.[4]
MacGibbon and Ross also provide the following floor-plans of the first and ground floors:
Hallyards Floor Plans (MacGibbon & Ross, 1887-1892)
Clearly, Hallyards was a fine example of a domestic castle of its time. In the 1970s, prior to the extension of the airport runway, sections of wall still survived. Today, though, it is almost entirely disappeared, apart from the raised rectangular area which it occupied, remains of the perimeter ramparts, and a large pile of masonry rubble in the North-west corner.
Eastern Wall Remains, Looking North
The site has been severely compromised even in recent history, not least during the period in the 1970s when the airport runway was extended up to its Eastern edge and the woods around it were cleared.
Hallyards Castle Site, Looking South Towards the Airport
It also seems that the site has been compromised due to the construction of the sewerage works immediately to its South-west, which seems to have led to a dirt track being run right through the centre of the site.
Hallyards Castle Site, Looking North
The large mound of masonry in the North-west corner of the site yields very little in the way of foundations still in situ, other than the following fragments:
Foundation Remains
One fragment appears to be a small section of wall still in place, with mortar still attached to it:
Masonry Remains, with Mortar
Various pieces of masonry which have been worked and shaped in several ways also exist, such as the following, which is presumably a rounded cornerstone:
Cornerstone Remains
Another half-buried fragment from this area has the appearance of a grave-slab, although no record is currently known of there being a chapel within the castle. If there was a chapel present, it would tend to suggest a medieval structure present on the same site as the known Renaissance castle, but there is no known proof of this, despite the likelihood that the sixteenth century barony at least had some form of noble house associated with it.
Unidentified Slab
Unidentified Slab
However, given that this area was possibly the location of a spiral staircase, it is more likely that this fragment was a section of that staircase. According to Tom Notman (previously of Newbridge), the Skene family crest-plate, a sandstone block, was moved from the tower staircase and built into part of Moray House in Edinburgh.
Intriguingly, the North-west area of the site is also scattered with fragments of oyster shells, presumably fished locally in the River Forth. Perhaps these particular oysters made a meal for John Skene himself!
Oyster Shells
To the South of the site between the castle and the modern sewerage works is a boggy area which may have previously been a pool of some kind associated with the castle:
Bog and Sewerage Works
thanks to dave caw of caledonian castles for discussion and sources on the castle,
gordon alexander mitchell (livingston) for conversations about local knowledge,
and tom notman (previously of newbridge) for information about the castle in the 1970s.
footnotes
[1] Thomas MacGibbon and David Ross, The Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland (Edinburgh: 1887-1892)
[2] Rev. Adam Duncan Tait, "Parish of Kirkliston", in The Statistical Account of Scotland (1845), Vol.1 p.136.
[3] John Knox, Historie of the Reformatioun of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1732).