Castle Map

Castle

Ballone Castle

Scotland · 16th century

Founded
c. 1550
Heritage status
category A listed building
Location
Tarbat
Coordinates
57.8302°, -3.80544°
Open on the map →Wikipedia ↗
Ballone Castle in Scotland
Photo: Dg-505 · CC BY 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Description

Ballone Castle was built in the 16th century. It was unoccupied for a couple of centuries and fell into ruin. In the 1990s it was purchased and restored by an architect. The original castle was built on a Z-plan and is unusual in having one round tower and one rectangular tower.

Situated north of Rockfield on the east coast of the parish of Tarbat, Ballone castle, which was also known as Tarbat castle, was reputedly built by the Earls of Ross, but came into possession of the family of Viscount Tarbat and the Earl of Cromartie. John Mackenzie, who was created baronet of Tarbat in the County of Ross in 1628, died there in 1654.

The building is a Z-plan castle with a square tower on the south west and a circular drum-tower on the north east.

After the Tarbat family moved to Tarbat House further south in the parish of Kilmuir Easter, the castle became a ruin, but it has recently been restored as a private house.

Text adapted from “Ballone Castle” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.

In the rankings

Ballone Castle ranks #6,799 of 9,040 worldwide in the atlas's castle fame ranking, and #207 of the 225 mapped in Scotland. Founded c. 1550, it is older than 36% of the atlas's dated landmarks, one of 887 atlas entries founded in the 16th century. 3 more atlas landmarks stand within 25 km. The nearest day-trip guide is Inverness, 46 km away. It is one of the 76 landmarks on the atlas's regional map of the Scottish Highlands. See how Scotland compares in the castle statistics.

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