The possible sites for the location of Tartraven Castle lie in the vicinity of Mid Tartraven farm or North Mains Farm, both to the South of Beecraigs Park, North-west of Bangour. Click here for a location map provided by StreetMap. The North Mains alternative location is here.
John Garth Wilkinson gives previous forms of Tartraven as Tortrevane (1490) and Tartrewin (1586), suggesting the first element as either Brythonic twr or Goidelic torr giving Scots tar ("rounded hill"), with Brythonic trefan ("little farm")[1] - in other words, "little farm on the rounded hill". However, the placename appears to derive from an earlier form, Retrevyn, which was certainly the name of an early medieval chapel located in the vicinity, granted to the Priory of St. Andrews around 1202. In this earlier form, the Brythonic trefan is clearly present in the trevyn element, but the initial tar is given as deriving from an original re. The re element is slightly obscure, and even W.J. Watson is in two minds about it. With regard to its presence in the Brythonic placename Rerigonion (near modern Loch Ryan), he concludes merely that "re- is evidently intensive and is probably cognate with Lat. prae".[2] However, he analyses the placename Resolis as "bright slope", although without giving us the actual root.[3] Presumably, Watson was thinking of the root which gives us modern Welsh rhiw ("slope"). This would give us a reconstructed original as something along the lines of Rhiw Trefan, meaning "little farm on the slope". Certainly, piecing all of this together, and taking the local topography into account, the original Retrevyn ("on the slope") makes far more sense than the modern Tartraven ("on the rounded hill").
The history of Tartraven Castle seems to be intimately linked to that of the thirteenth century Retrevyn Chapel, with land being granted to that chapel by one Sir Richard de Melville (c.1180-1215), which suggests the existence of some form of baronial structure of the Melvilles from at least that period onwards. What the exact nature of the barony or lordship might have been, in its physical manifestation, remains obscure. However, it is known that the Melville family originated in Malleville, Normandy, with a William Melville (Guillame de Malleville) fighting at Hastings against the Anglo-Saxons with William the Conqueror in 1066. The family then seems to have moved into Scotland under David I in 1124, being granted lands in Midlothian to the North of Lasswade, yielding placenames such as Melville Grange, Melville Mains, Wester Melville, and South Melville, but the original Melville Castle on the banks of the North Esk was replaced in 1786 by the current structure which is now a hotel. The Melvilles soon spread out across Scotland's baronies from their initial Midlothian base, and it would seem that the West Lothian barony centred on Tartraven was an early example of this expansion.
Tartraven Castle no longer exists, although apparently, remains of the foundations and gateway were still extant in the early nineteenth century. Equally, its precise location is a matter of dispute. According to CANMORE, taking information from the 1970 Ordnance Survey 6" map, the location was at NT 0045 7264 which places it on the North-east tip of the modern Mid Tartraven farm:
Possible Site of the Castle, Looking East
At this location, the only possible prcise area is the vaguely squarish bank on the North-west corner of the current farm buildings. Furthermore, several dressed stones from the castle are said to be scattered around the modern farm.
Stones from the Castle(?) at Mid Tartraven Farm
The presence of three wells around the farm buildings on the 1856 Ordnance Survey map is also potentially suggestive, although they are hard to date as such.
Alternatively, modern Ordnance Survey maps note that a field further down the glen to the North-east is still known as Castle Strip, at NT 0107 7289. CANMORE also notes that:
Old local informants state that the latter is simply that of an old farm-steading. On the other hand, the site at South Mains has every appearance of being that of a motte.[4]
This site has clearly been subject to heavy cultivation, yet the remains of the ditches and squarish mounds are still visible:
Motte or Castle Remains? - Looking South-west to Mid Tartraven
Motte or Castle Remains? - Looking West
Another well is also present at this location. Again, CANMORE suggests the following:
This homestead arguably represents an early centre of the lordship of Tartraven, associated with a private chapel... in the 13th century, and later succeeded by Tartraven Castle.[5]
Yet, given that neither of the possible sites for the castle have ever been seriously excavated, the question of its location remains open.
At first sight, it would seem that the Castle Strip location is more promising a possibility, and perhaps the confusion between the two possible sites and the attempt to distinguish them as an "early homestead" on the one hand and a "later castle" on the other is easily solved. It may be that there was, in fact, only one structure and that what the local lore terms a "castle" was in fact a baronial mansion as such, from the beginning until its demise. This would then reduce the number of possible sites to one, and probably point to the so-called Castle Strip field as the only location.
Here, the placename evidence may (or may not) provide clues. If the early Retrevyn form is indeed correct, and if it derives from something like Rhiw Trefan ("little farm on the slope"), then clearly, the current position of Mid Tartraven Farm, halfway down the slope of a hill, becomes more significant than the apparent motte structure in the base of the glen at North Mains Farm. Alternatively, Rhiw Trefan may only be the name of an early farmstead or village (tre or tref can mean both farmstead and village) and not the castle as such - it may be that the castle was indeed at the bottom of the glen, merely taking its name from the nearest established settlement.
Whichever way the problem is approached, it seems that only an archaeological investigation could settle the issue.
footnotes
[1] John Garth Wilkinson, West Lothian Placenames (Harburn: Torphin, 1992), p.31.
[2] W.J. Watson, The History of the Celtic Placenames of Scotland (Edinburgh: 1926), p.34.
[3] ibid., p.182.
[4] CANMORE, "South Mains, Tartraven".
[5] ibid.