Glasclune Castle

Glasclune Castle is an unusual tower house dating to about 1600. It is in a poor state of repair and can be accessed on foot, although the ruin is in arable fields so guidance ought to be sought from the farmer when crops or livestock are present. It is built at the top of a steep slope near the Glasclune Burn. The thickness of the walls is only about a metre, suggesting that it was build in the style of a tower house rather than actually having much in the way of defence. In a way it is made up of two main parts – a lairds house of two chambers with a projecting round stair tower in the middle of the north facade, but a long rectangular range extends from the eastern side of this facade, placing the stair in a re-entrant angle. On the north-eastern corner of this range is a round tower, with a small turret stair in the eastern re-entrant.

Glasclune was held by the Bissett family in the mid 14th century, then by the Hering family into the 17th, when George Heryng died without heirs in 1615. It is likely that the Heryngs were the builders of the castle, which later passed by marriage to the Blair family, who were eventually forfeited for Jacobite support after the 1715 Rising. The castle may have been destroyed in this period as it does not appear on the may of General Roy, and in 1762 when it was granted to to a John Campbell, it was not brought back into use.

HES Canmore database entry