Today, Ochiltree is a tiny rural community just to the North West of Uphall, sitting on the top of the range of hills of which the Binny Craig and Cairnpapple dominate, with impressive panoramic views across to Edinburgh in the East, the Ochil Hills of Fife in the North, Ben Lomond in the North West, and the Pentlands in the South.
Ochiltree Castle
Click here for a location map provided by StreetMap.
At first sight, the name "Ochiltree" might seem to easily suggest a Gàidhlig etymology based around the likes of the common placename formulation allt righ (king's stream), but while it has indubitably passed through Gaelicised pronunciation and down into Scotticised spelling, most scholars point to the fact that the earliest written forms of the name clearly indicate a Brythonic root - Watson (p.209) cites Ouchiltre (1282), Ugheltre (1304), and Uchiltrie (1406), which he derives from the same root as the reasonably common Welsh placename Ucheldref or Ucheldre (uchel + tref), meaning "high village". Appropriately, this is also related to the root of the Ochil Hills in Fife, which the castle looks out to across the River Forth. According to Watson, the basic Brythonic root in question here is uxellos ("high"), now uchel in modern Welsh, and with its Gàidhlig correlate in uasal.
Ochiltree Castle is still a private residential property, viewable only distantly from the single-track roads which weave through the adjacent hills. However, we are currently attempting to gain closer access to the castle in order to provide better quality and more detailed photographs.
Ochiltree Castle
The castle was originally built in the sixteenth century in typical Scots baronial style, with evident French Renaissance château influences, and its gardens are still maintained to a reasonably formal plan (as far as one can see from the road!). As can be seen from these distant shots, some of the the walls are harled in white, which is typical of similar houses, such as the nearby Houstoun House in Uphall. Today, the castle is adjacent to a working farm.
Ochiltree Castle
more to follow...