Balwearie Castle in the Kingdom of Fife Scotland

Hello Hello Hivians

The UK and indeed Scotland is home to many castles, some still standing and some in ruins.

Last week in Midweek hike to Balwearie Castle in the Kingdom of Fife 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Scotland I set off on the quest to find Balwearie Castle.

Following what I thought was a map we ended up peaking through trees by the golf course to see this...

That was not Balwearie Castle! Oh fluff no!

I have no idea what it is, some old church by the looks of it!

I have still not managed to find out what it is. It looked to me like someone's house now!

What do you think?

I brought the big guns out and checked google maps, well fluff it, we had to go back down the wee track and then turn left.

This we did and carried on.

On and On we went and finally, we spied Balwearie Castle in a field.

So I have no idea what the golf course church ruins/house was because this most defo was the ruins of Balwearie Castle. Google maps was even confirming it this time!

The weather was warm and I was wearing shorts.

It did seem hard to get to, I mean just look at the height of the grass/weeds!!

We did see this break in the dyke, although I am sure it was only because someone had taken away some of the stones.

I mentioned we were wearing shorts, well the overgrown grass was over your waist. With this being tick season and the threat of possible Lyme disease we decided to not venture up to the castle until we came back wearing long trousers!

Before I show you more of the castle let's dazzle you with some facts and figures from Historic Environment Scotland. Scottish Charity No. SC045925.

On 23 February 1463 James III granted to William Scot of Balwearie free faculty and special licence to erect a castle or fortalice on his lands of Balwearie.

It would appear then that Balwearie Castle was built not long after the granting of the licence from King James III, because from the Field Trip of 1925, HES mention that ...

Balwearie has been an oblong 15th-century tower standing about 2 ½ miles north-west of Kinghorn on the flattened side of an extensive ridge, which rises as it runs westward but falls sharply on the flanks to north and south. The north gable and east wall, as well as part of the south wall, still stand fairly complete to their wall-heads, about 45 feet above the ground, showing the tower to have been 43 feet long and at least 28 feet broad, measured over walls averaging 6 feet in thickness. The masonry is ashlar, built in courses 10 to 12 inches in height with very tenacious shell-lime, and is fairly cubical towards the base of the walls.

We are used to buildings with thick walls, it does get fluffing cold in the winter here when the wind blows a hoolie!

☑️ walls averaging 6 feet in thickness

Yes I think that is a given, those are some mighty thick walls and are a good six feet or for you metric people about 182.9 cms!

The report from HES states that ...

On the third floor the fireplace lintel has been supported on corbels, while the windows have been small in size and set between the corbels of the parapet.

What the fluff is a corbel you may well be wondering?

Well fear not, Wiki tells us that...

In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall.

If you are still clueless click the link and you will see pictures of them and say to yourself ... Ah those!

At this point Mrs T had her phone out and in between googling corbel she was taking pictures of me!

Have you seen any corbels?

Well what about the parapet then ...

There is a tree growing out of it now! You would need to be careful walking along the parapet, but you would see a couple of cracking views from up there.

Initially, I thought the field had been taped off so the horse would not go in there to eat the yellow ragwort plant. In my post Don't touch my stinking willy! I mentioned how dangerous and toxic it is to horses. But that was not the reason as there was a horse in that area as well.

The 1925 field trip did mention the small windows, well I think that one certainly is wee or small!

This one looked a very fancy window with the curved arch in the stone work. And do you see the slit on the left hand side, that is where the castle defendants would have shot arrows at any attackers.

Looking at the top section of the castle, and I wonder if this was the fireplace that the report mentioned?

It certainly looks like the third floor and again I loved the curved top,so yes maybe that was a big old fireplace.

You can see nature is doing her best to consume the building, but it is slow process. 800 years young and the castle has not given up yet.

Do you see a shape in the castle wall?

What about if I zoom in now...

To me it looked like a Christmas Tree...

Do you see it now?

Talking of trees, that reminded me of Beveridge Park and the Wizard's Walk. I made a wee story about it, you can read On the trail of the Wizard if you want more info.

The Wizard in question was Sir Michael Scott of Balwearie.

You can see I blew up the jist about Sir Michael.

Essentially they say he lived at Balwearie CAstle in the 13th century.

Well that is all fine and dandy, but if he did live at a Balwearie Castle then it was not the ruins that I just showed you!

However, he was a fascinating character and they made a cool wooden statue of him in the park.

Remember I mentioned the gorgeous views from the Castle parapet?

Well just look at it now, the heavens are opening up over that direction!

This being a typical British summers day, who knew if we would get caught in the rain or not.

So we swivelled back and took one last look at Balwearie Castle and hoped that as we were going in that direction we would stay dry!

This concludes Balwearie Castle in the Kingdom of Fife Scotland and is my post for this week's #wednesdaywalk challenge hosted by @tattoodjay in collaboration with #makemesmile hosted by @elizacheng.

Come back for the final episode as we rush back home, will we outrun the black rains?

Thanks for visiting and enjoy the rest of your day!