Buittle Castle

Buittle Castle, also known historically as Botle or Botel Castle, is a Motte and Bailey site in Galloway, south-west Scotland with significant early and medieval history comprising a significant ruined Norman style Motte, and several extant buildings and gardens, including the later residential building in the form of the Tower House, on the historic Bailey. It is located in the valley of the River Urr, 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) west of Dalbeattie. The castle is within the parish of Buittle, in the traditional county of Kirkcudbrightshire and is a scheduled ancient monument.^[1][2]

A motte and bailey castle was built either by Uchtred, Lord of Galloway or his son Roland, Lord of Galloway, in the 12th century. The castle passed by marriage to John de Balliol through the heiress of Alan, Lord of Galloway, Dervorguilla of Galloway, who built the Norman castle. Robert de Brus, 5th Lord of Annandale, captured the castle in 1286. The castle was in English hands in 1296. King Robert the Bruce captured the castle in 1308,^[3] and it was given to Sir James Douglas, Lord of Douglas.

The castle came into Edward Balliol's hands in 1332, before being given to Archibald the Grim, 3rd Earl of Douglas, in 1372. The castle remained in the hands of the Douglasses until 1456, when the castle reverted to the Crown. The castle was later in the hands of the Maxwells and briefly the Gordons of Lochinvar. The Motte was slighted in 1595, leaving the remaining buildings of the Bailey, which, it is believed, had already been taken on by this time as the primary residential buildings.^[4] This residential shift from the motte to the bailey of the castle began, in the first place, with the building of a Mansion House dated to AD 1347,^[5] likely affixed to the keep of the bailey, built by Edward Balliol, and latterly by the Tower House as the primary residential building of the castle. By this time in Scottish history, the tower house was the prevailing form of castle, or fortified building in Scotland.^[6]

The castle was in the ownership of the Maxwells of Buittle by the 16th century,^[7] but by the mid 18th century, probably due to a combination of Jacobite associations and changing fashion, the family had moved to Munches House, a Neo-Classical mansion a few miles to the west. It was at this time that the historic Motte and Bailey were put to agricultural use, and subsumed into the larger Munches Estate. Francis Grosse shows the Castle in a roofless state in 1798, with agricultural activities being undertaken in the buildings of the courtyard.^[8] The Munches Estate was divided and sold in the mid 20th century, but the ruins of the Motte were separately disponed from the bailey and remained in the possession of the Maxwells of Munches until 1984 when they were gifted to Balliol College, Oxford by Peter Maxwell QC of Munches [1] himself a Balliol man. [2]