Tour Scotland Travel Video Winter Snow Falling Balhousie Castle Perth Perthshire

Tour Scotland travel video Blog of snow falling at Balhousie Castle on ancestry visit to Perth, Perthshire, Scotland. This Scottish castle is the Regimental Headquarters and Museum of The Black Watch. The castle was built in 1631, although its origins are believed to go back a further three hundred years. It originally served as the seat of the Earls of Kinnoull, and stood within a walled enclosure containing subsidiary buildings, orchards etc., on a terrace overlooking the North Inch. After falling into neglect in the early 19th century, the Castle was restored, in fact, virtually rebuilt, and extensively remodelled on a larger scale between 1862 and 1864 in the Baronial style by the architect David Smart. No original features survive except for parts of the original rubble walls on the east side. David Smart was born in Alyth in 1824. It is not known where he was first apprenticed but for many years he worked in the office of David Bryce. Smart's early Scots baronial and Italian Renaissance work is indistinguishable from Bryce's. By the late 1870s his public and commercial buildings had become Victorian late classic with French roofs. His son John had been articled to his father in 1888 and had subsequent experience with Kinnear and Peddie in Edinburgh in 1892, with McLuckie and Walker in Stirling in 1893 and with Thomas Martin Cappon in Dundee in 1894. David retained the existing office at 42 Tay Street, Perth and James opened his own office at 28 York Place in the same town with his son as chief assistant. David Smart retired in or about 1911 at the age of 86 and died on 13 October 1914 at the age of ninety. He was then living at Rockbank, Kinnoull, and left a widow, Margaret Morrison, and three daughters.

All photographs are copyright of Sandy Stevenson, Tour Scotland, and may not be used without permission.

View the most recent Tour Scotland photographs.