Hallyards Castle

An almost completely ruined 17th-century tower house, the scant remains of Hallyards Castle lie just to the northeast of a sewage works, close to the west end of the main runway at Edinburgh Airport, a half-mile (1 km) north of Ratho Station.

Once an oblong fortified tower, with a circular stair turret projecting from the middle of the east side, Hallyards Castle was built for a son of Sir John Skene, Lord Curriehill (c.1543 - 1617). The house comprised three floors and a garret and was probably built on the site of an earlier house around 1630. The house was sold to the Marjoribanks family in 1696.

It was partially ruined by the end of the 19th Century when MacGibbon and Ross described it in their Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland. Its destruction assisted by undermining, the remains of the castle were levelled when the airport runway was extended in 1975.


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