The Man With The White Sandshoes (and a Purple Man too)

   I've put out a call for information today via Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc. to see if anyone can provide me with any additional information regarding "The Man With the White Sandshoes".  This character is a kind of urban legend, whose supposed activity stretched over many decades in the mid to late 20th century.  In summary, he was a nameless but terrifying apparition - I'm not sure whether human or ghostly -who terrorised people in Dundee by chasing after them, for unknown reasons.  Generations of children had him whispered about by cold blooded siblings and older associates who took delight in instilling mortal fear in more gullible bairns.

   A cursory investigation shows that the character (archetype?) is familiar in other parts of Scotland, most in the west, where he was sometimes known as "Sandshoe Sammy".  More intriguingly, the same character also featured in the urban parts of North-East England.  I always believed that the spectre was well-kent in Dundee, but there is no mention of him in Geoff Holder's well researched Haunted Dundee.  

   In my childhood the Man With The White Sandshoes was active in the environs of Balgay Hill, in the gloaming and after dark. he ran on the roads and wooded pathways of the hill, running after random unfortunates who happened to be unlucky enough to have strayed into his domain.  A favourite spot of his apparently was the iron bridge which joins the two sections of the hill.  This was also a favoured haunt of the White Lady (whose actives are admirably detailed by Holder), but I don't know whether there was any connection between these two creatures.  A particular target of the Man was any nurse who happened to walk through the hill, on the way to or from her shift at Victoria Hospital, to the south of Balgay.  What he would do if he actually caught anyone is also unknown.

   The apparition is alleged to have haunted the area around Dunmore Street, in Kirkton, in the 1950s.  Beyond Dundee, there is a wonderful tale from North Lanarkshire/East Dunbartonshire online, related by someone who used to venture every Saturday with an associate or two, 'years back', from Moodiesburn to Kirkintilloch, an isolated country route.  The narrator says that one winter weekend day he crossed the road, 'just before the countryside part', and saw what he thought was a severed hand in a glove perched on the top of a dyke.  However, it turned out to be a glove cleverly packed with ice by a clever prankster.  He and his friends started speculating that the hand was real and the work of a serial killer they decided to call "The White Sandshoe Man", and for months joked that this horror was pursuing them.  Months and months later he found another snow packed glove on the same wall, only this was from the other hand.  The killer punchline was that it was the middle of a July heatwave - how could it have got there and not melted?

   The story is intriguing for its many folkloric elements.  Did he merely pluck the name of the bogey out of the air, or was the character floating about, metaphorically or actually, in the local ether?

   The Glasgow version of the origin of the soft shoe man is more emphatic.  During the blackout in World War II, there was a man who used to lurk around in the enforced darkness of the Garnethill area, and he would pounce on stray women and strangle them.  He was never brought to justice.  His method was made effective by his wearing sandshoes and therefore he was nicknamed Sand Shoe Sanny and became a terror to successive generations of weans in the locality.

   A variant on the name of the prowler is "Sand Shoe Sanny", not Sammy, readily explained by the fact that sannies are Scots slang for sandshoes. Another rogue tradition says the same was "Sandshoe Wullie".  One Glaswegian swore that this character lived near the public baths in Elvan Street:  

He wore a long coat and a bunnet and...walked with his hands in his coat pockets.  I never ever saw this person or new [sic.] anyone who had actually seen him... Whenever we were in the Shettleston area from Wellshot Road down to Cree Street we were always extra vigilant...

   On the same online message board another contributor ("weegieghost") gave the variant name for the ghoul as "Flannelfoot".  Is this a throwback to a primordial, noiseless bogle from before the time when the ubiquitous sandshoe came into being?  One of the functions of the being, of course, was to keep children in line, away from certain areas and home by a specific time, or else.

   

   Possibly the Sandshoe Man (was "Plimsoll Samuel" his given name, I wonder?) was a regional variant on the shadow being known around the world as The Silent Man or The Still Man.  This is a stalking figure who murders victims for reasons unknown and seems to feature in folklore as far afield as Germany and other places in Europe.

   Be that as it may, the Scottish version is very distinctive.  Fair enough wearing sandshoes for fleet movement, but why particularly white sandshoes?  Surely that would just draw attention to the runner.  One source states that the anonymous man wore one black shoe and one brown one, which is nearly as attention seeking.  How the story began is anyone's guess, but my mind is drawn to tales of "Jack the Runner", one of the many haunters of Glamis Castle (itself not far from Dundee).  This creature ran wildly across the lush and eerie lawns in front of the castle and is reckoned by some to be the spirit of the famous family monster, taking a forlorn chance to escape from its family captors.  Maybe there is a link here to an archetype?

+++++++++ Respondents' Roll of Honour from Facebook, etc. +++++++++++++++

   In response to my request for information, the following members of Dundonian History for All on Facebook have kindly provided the following: 

SN:  'As children we were told we had to be asleep before the man in the white sannies came, never told why!!??'

MH: 'I think perhaps there was a pedo or murderer who wore white sandshoes and mums and dads all over used it to help keep the children safe. I was frightened by a man wearing white sandshoes at Lochee park. My pals and I gave him a wide berth but looking back he was probably on his way to play tennis in the park.'

AP:  'I used to live at 36 North Ellen Street up three flights of stairs and sometimes had to take a meal down to the old lady on the ground floor. At the bottom of the stairs was an alley way out to the rubbish bins and the man in the White sannies used to hide in there having a smoke.'

MB:  'He lived next door to us, and apart from the white Sannie’s his nose was purple wi the drink.'

JD:  'My parents when they were children were told to watch out for the man in the white sanshoes. That would've been 1940s. They told us in the 1970s the same story but they said he wore red clothing.'

MT:  'While at primary school in the early 60's someone in the playground would shout "Here's the manny in the white sannies! We would all run for cover. The other one was the "purple man".'

GD:  'At Dryburgh Primary in the sixties we were scared of the Purple Mannie but never saw him.' (RF, a contemporary at Dryburgh Primary, also recalls the Purple Mannie.)

DM: 'My dad told me about the man in the white sand shoes was a flasher when he was young. Used to creep about in sandshoes so kids didn't here him coming and when he got close he would open his rain coat and be naked.'

MG states that his wife 'was told about him when little apparently he would creep up behind women to scare them wearing sand shoes so not to be heard doing this'.

   Several people remember at least one person in Dundee singing a song about the Man With the White Sandshoes, but the words and tune are probably now lost.

  JC informed me by email that her memory of the White Sandshoe Man was when she went to Mains School in 1940s: 'he used to wear a long raincoat and he used to stand on the golf course looking over to our school . I’ve never forgotten him.'

   The Teeside version of Sandshoe Sammy was very evident in the 1970s.  As in some Scottish instances, in England the name also sometimes became attached to a real person.  In Middlesbrough, a lonely figure who always carried a carrier bag and wore sandshoes which were too big for him (and, therefore, presumably useless for running?). The figure, in various whispered forms, was known in the city from the 1940s onwards.  What connection there was between this area and Glasgow, in terms of this tale, are not clear.  But a tale from a contributor to The Partick Times (Summer 2015) also states that Sandshoe Sammy was a name given to a real person, who stayed at Exeter Drive.

Anyway this man, maybe he had something wrong with his feet, but for whatever reason, he wore huge, big sandshoes and he always wore a coat and he had a beard. He wasn’t frightening or creepy, but there was something odd about the man and he was always called Sandshoe Sammy. People used to follow him and shout at him. I remember when he died they had to ask people to go to his funeral because he didn’t know anybody. Somebody went round the doors telling people, and a lot of the neighbours went.

Some Sources and Further Reading

Balgay Hill, Too Few Ghosts?

The Twa Phantoms, of Balgay Hill and the Law!

http://discuss.glasgowguide.co.uk/lofiversion/index.php/t3209.html

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=26816110

https://glasganon.wordpress.com/2012/02/05/197/

https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/legend-teesside-bogeyman-sandshoe-sammy-13211033

Holder, Geoff, Haunted Dundee (Stroud, 2012).

Celtic Relics - The Kingoldrum and Guthrie Bells

   This post concentrates on those evocative but elusive ancient items associated with the ancient church in Scotland, Ireland and elsewhere, hand bells.  Previous posts have mentioned several of these which were located in Angus.  St Medan's Bell was associated with Lintrathen and Airlie and there are records of its hereditary keeper, who resigned it to the Ogilvy family, in the 15th century.  Tragically, it was mistaken for scrap metal in a local sale in the 19th century and destroyed.  The Lindsay family owned St Fillan's Bell, though its hereditary keepers were the Durays of Durayhill, dempsters of the Laird of Edzell.  Sadly, this bell has also been lost.  Francis Eeles described the two forms of early bells from the Celtic tradition.  The first type was formed from a sheet of iron bent into a quadrangular shape, with rivets up one or two sides, coasted with bronze or copper, with a handle on the top.  A later type was more regularly bell-shaped, made by a complete casting.  Around 20 early quadrangular bells made of iron or bronze have been survived in Scotland, and around twice as many from Ireland, and the consensus among scholars is that they were brought into north and eastern Pictish territories by the family of Iona.

   Hand-bells were the only type known during the early medieval period as the technology necessary for casting free hanging bells such as were later used in church towers etc. was not known.  Hand-bells, whatever their precise use, were rung by striking, rather than being made with clappers.

The Kingoldrum Bell

Detail of crucifixion from sculptured stone at Kingoldrum.

      The church and lands of Kingoldrum, north-west of Kirriemuir, were one of the early royal grants to Arbroath Abbey  in the early 12th century and seems to have been an established power centre as there are fragments of sculptured stones there (though there are no records of the site in earlier records). While the kirk of the parish  (which is no longer in use) was built in 1840 it sits roughly on the same site as its medieval predecessor, on a prominent mound and within a large, circular graveyard, which may indicate a very early date, though to my knowledge there has been no archaeological investigation to confirm this.  Like Airlie, Kingoldrum was dedicated to St Medan, who had an attested early cult locally, and there was a well (now lost) dedicated to this cleric nearby.  Gaelic seemed to flourish alongside Scots for a long period in this locality.

 In 1843 an old scellach or bell, made of sheet metal, was found here.  A bronze chalice and glass bowl were recovered beside it. Warden reports that:

A curious bronze cross and chain were found in a stone cist near the Church.  These and the bell were presented to the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries by the Rev. Mr Haldane, the minister of the parish, but the chalice and bowl have disappeared.  In another cist was a skeleton doubled up, with a rude bronze armlet on one of its wrists.

   The Kingoldrum Bell is now housed in the National Museums of Scotland (NMAS KA3).  Incidentally, the Rev. James Ogilvy Haldane was minister of the parish from 1836 and died in 1891. The enthusiastic minister also donated other finds from his parish to the Museum of Antiquities:  an axe and urn (in 1880 and 1887 respectively), fragments of sculptured stones and metal relics (1867), and, most significantly, a beautiful carved stone ball in 1884, further enhancing the rich archaeology of the area.  His father, William Haldane, had been minister of Kingoldrum before him.

Ball of conglomerate (3" diameter) found in Kingoldrum by the Rev. Halldane.

   Daniel Wilson reports the finding as follows:

This ancient bell was dug up in 1843, and contained, in addition to its detached tongue, a bronze chalice, and a glass bowl - the latter imperfect.  the bell is of the usual square form, made of sheet iron, which appears to have been coated with bronze, though little of this now remains.  It measures 8 by 7 inches at the mouth and 9½ inches high, exclusive of the handle.  Unfortunately the value of the discovery was not appreciated, and both the chalice and the bowl, it is feared, are now lost.

     In Scotland in Early Christian Times, Anderson adds the following, lamenting the loss of the other unique items found:

A curious cross-shaped ornament or mounting, decorated with enamel and a portion of a bronze chain of S-shaped links, dug up near the place where the bell was found, and three sculptured stones from the same site, are also in the Museum.  It is impossible to determine with certainty what the two articles, which are described as a chalice of bronze and a bowl or goblet of glass, may have been.  We can only regret their loss, all the more to be deplored that nothing answering to this description has ever been found in connection with any other remains of the Christian period.  No chalice of the early church exists in Scotland. [The  metal finds mentioned here were donated by Haldane in 1867.]

Kingoldrum finds, illustrated in Scotland in Early Christian Times.

 

The Guthrie Castle Bell

   The ancient bell which was kept (for centuries, one assumes) at Guthrie Castle is now in the National Museums of Scotland (NMAS 1922: 40). It is interesting that we have another example here in a church relic in the hands of a secular landowning family, which means that the sacred object was intimately connected with the hold a particular kindred had over the land they owned. Unlike Kingoldrum, there does not seem to be much evidence that Guthrie was an important focal point of secular or ecclesiastic power in the Pictish era or immediately afterwards.  The Guthries, like the Ogilvys, were a family whose name originated in Angus. However, although they held Guthrie itself and various other local estates, they did not become enobled or play such a prominent part in national events like either the Ogilvys or the Lindsays.

   

  The Guthrie Bell is one of only two enshrined bells which have survived in Scotland.  (The other was from Kirkmichael-Glassary and is also now in Edinburgh.)  Eeles confirms this bell is of the earlier type, described above, and must have been both early in date and associated with an important early saint, from the 8th century or earlier.  His unsupported claim that the bell and shrine must have originated in either the west or the north of Scotland can certainly be challenged. 

   The bell itself is made from iron and stands 8 and a half inches high.  Its shrine completely covers it  and is made up from four plates richly decorated by ornaments.  There are indications that the shrine has been renovated several times. There is an inscription on the shrine which reads Johannes dlexandri me fieri feisit, and made have been made in the 15th or 16th century reconstructions.  Francis Eeles summarises his thoughts on the history of the two objects:

The bell itself is probably the relic of some important saint whose
fame came down till late in the mediaeval period. It may well date from
before the ninth century.
It was probably enshrined early in the twelfth century, to which
period the figure of our Lord crucified and the small apostle, probably
St John, belong.
In the fourteenth century the silver plate with its embossed decoration
was made and the crucifix and attendant figures were remounted upon it.
Late in the fifteenth century or early in the sixteenth, John the son
of Alexander made a second reconstruction, changing the position of
some of the figures and adding others.
In the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries the loss of some figures may
have occasioned a further re-arrangement of the rest in the manner
in which they now exist, including the refixing of the inscription plate
upside down.

The Guthrie Bell shrine, based on illustration in Anderson's Scotland in Early Christian Times.

Selected Works and Sites Consulted

Anderson, Joseph, Scotland in Early Christian Times, The Rhind Letters in Archaeology, 1879 (Edinburgh, 1881).

Bourke, Cormac, 'The Hand-bells of the early Scottish Church,' Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 113 (1983), 464-8.

Catalogue of the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (revised edition, Edinburgh, 1892).

Eeles, Francis C.,  'The Guthrie Bell and its Shrine,' Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 60 (1926), 409-20.

Laing, Lloyd, Late Celtic Britain and Ireland, c. 400-1200 AD (London, 1975).

Warden, Alexander, Angus or Forfarshire, volume 4 (Dundee, 1884).

Wilson, Daniel, 'Primitive Scottish Bells,' Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, volume 1 (1851-54), 18-23.

https://canmore.org.uk/site/32234/kingoldrum

Silver plate attached to front face of the Guthrie Bell.

Previous Related Posts

St Drostan and Other Early Saints

The Guthries of Guthrie

Another Lost Treasure

The Dwindling and Extinction of Gaelic in Angus

Guthrie Castle

Angria the Pirate - Dundonian Scourge of the Indian Ocean?

On the face of it,  regarded phonetically, Angria seems a good name for a historical pirate and the name is associated with a particular seafarer in the Indian Ocean of the 18th century who successfully defied the might of the English East India Company for nearly four decades.  The original behind the character was Kanhoji Angre (otherwise Conajee Angria), who was certainly a native of the Indian sub-continent.  He was admiral of the Konkan navy on the western side of India and died undefeated in 1729.  What are we to make of then in the claims in various sources that a British naval commander encountered Angria the Pirate in this region in the year 1750 and found out - astonishingly - that the apparently Asian seaman had an incredibly detailed knowledge of his home town.

   According to the account in Dundee Delineated (1822), in the year 1750, a certain Captain Crichton of Dundee was 'captured by Angria, the famous East India Pirate' and the following strange conversation between the two men took place:

     

Angria. - Where do you originally come from?
Crichton. - From Dundee, in Scotland.
Angria. - Ay! ay! from Dundee!!! Then pray, where does the Cross of Dundee stand?

Crichton. - Near the west end of the large square, opposite the new Town-house.
Angria. - How many steps are in it?
Crichton. - Six steps, and all go round about it.
Angria. - Quite right.  Where stands Monk's holm?
Crichton. - On the south side of the Nethergate, and east from the Hospital, opposite to   Girzie Gourlay's stable.
Angria. - Right again.  Where stands the Machlin Tower?
Crichton. - Just at the west end of the broad of the Murraygate, on the north side, where  they have lately erected a public Well, - to be called the Dog Well, from Archibald Doig, a merchant, who has been at the expense of erecting a dog on the top of it, cut out of a solid stone.
Angria. - I am much obliged to you for this information, being news to me.  But, pray, where stands St Pauls?
Crichton. - On the south side of the Murraygate, immediately opposite the Machlin Tower.
Angria. - Do you know St Roche?
Crichton. - Yes.  We call it Semmirookie.  At the east end of the Cowgate, on the north side, near the Den burn.

     Upon which Angria answered. - Well, Captain Crichton, because we are townsmen, I give you your liberty and your ship in a present.

 

   Before looking at the background of this extraordinary story, it's as well saying that the truth or otherwise of this legend has entirely eluded me so far.  Following the death of Kanhoji in June 1729, the dynasty was inherited by his eldest son Sukhoji who ruled until his death in 1733.  The Angrian territories were later divided between other brothers and half-brothers, which was the situation still when Captain Crichton encountered his Scottish 'Angria' in 1750.  

   The story of the encounter between Crichton and Angria, whether fictitious or not, was repeated in various printed sources in the 19th century, such as Charles Rogers' Traits and Stories of the Scottish People, and even made it into the footnotes of the Dundee poet Joseph Lee's Tales O' Our Town in 1910.  nearer to the time of Dundee Delineated was James Edward Alexander's work Travels from India to England (1827), which reports:

We passed the island of Severndroog, of Golden Rock, the strong hold of the famous pirate Angria, who (which is not generally known) was a native of Dundee, in Scotland.  He was originally the admiral of the Mahratta fleet, and afterwards cruised on his own account.  He and his descendants were the terror of this coast for many years, and caused it to bear the appellation of "the Pirate  Coast".

    The truth behind the matter eludes me.  Strangely, and probably coincidentally, Charlotte Bronte's juvenile adventure tales set in a fictional land called Angria, features a character named 'Sir John Martin Dundee'.  

   Did a Dundonian really serve with the successors of Angria and possibly even adopt his family name.  Like the origins of that other Dundonian pirate Captain Kidd, the truth is out there somewhere, but buried as covertly as an old sea dog's treasure chest.

Lady of Three Castles: Marion Ogilvy

   Marion Ogilvy, a daughter of the noble house of that name in Angus, lived a long life and was associated with the three houses mentioned in the title of this post (and is said to haunt several of them).  She is otherwise principally known as being the common law wife of Cardinal David Beaton and the mother of his children, but she is otherwise little known in her own right.  There does not even seem to be a surviving portrait of Marion, though images survive of Beaton.

   Marion's father was Sir James Ogilvy of Lintrathen who was made Lord Ogilvy of Airlie in 1491, just before being sent as an ambassador to Denmark by King James IV.  Around this time he married his fourth wife, Janet, likely the daughter of Robert, second Lord Lyle, a Refrewshire landholder.  Marion and her full sister Janet probably grew up at Airlie Castle and Marion at least must have had faint memories of her father, who likely died in 1504.  One of nine children, her half-brother John became second Lord Ogilvy and was nearly four decades older than her.  The later head of the family and a close contemporary was John, fourth Lord Ogilvy, her great-nephew.

View of Melgund Castle from Jervise's Memorials of Angus and the Mearns

    Marion would have been a vital and well-known personality in the area as she remained in Angus throughout most of the course of her life, unlike many other noblewomen who were obliged to marry husbands far away. She built up a considerable portfolio of properties in Angus during her lifetime and strongly defended her rights to rents and ownership of land in the courts when necessary.  In matters of property, the historian Margaret Sanderson points out, she was 'incorrigibly litigious, a habit she may have learned from her mother' (Mary Stewart's People, Edinburgh, 1987, p. 7).  Among the Ogilvy family papers there is a surviving document by Marion, signed Mary Ougylvy, dated at Airlie on 6th August 1525, where she describes herself as 'ye dochter executrix and intromittour of Jean Lyle Ladie Ogyluy my modyr'.

   David Beaton was a Fife man, but when he became appointed Abbot of Arbroath in 1524 the area may not have been entirely unfamiliar to him.  His branch of the Beatons in fact originated in Angus.  If he had not known Marion before, he must have encountered her between this date (when he recently returned from Europe) and Feb 1526 when there is a record of her being with Beaton in Edinburgh.  By this time Marion was over thirty and possibly beyond standard marriageable age.Whether the couple married or not is not known, but the church was of course more of a profession than a calling to the future cardinal and it was common for administrators like him to have families and children and defer their full acceptance of religious ordination.  He and Marion mostly lived in Angus, where there is widespread traditions about him, mainly attached to castles he is supposed to have inhabited (see below).  Marion Ogilvy's main home in the 1520s and 1530s was Ethie Castle, near Arbroath, which she seems to have held in life-rent (granted to her on 22nd May 1528).  Among her land holdings nearby was the Kirktoun of St Vigeans.  

   Beaton acquired the lands of Melgund in 1542 and a castle was built there.  Marion, styled Lady Melgund, received a tack of the thirds of Melgund in 1575.  When she died in that year one of her sons, David Betoun of Melgund, became one of her executors. (He married Margaret, daughter of Lord Lindsay of the Byres.)

   In revenge for the death of the Protestant preacher George Wishart, the Cardinal of Scotland was killed by insurgents at St Andrews Castle in May 1546.  Marion was apparently at St Andrews when the Cardinal was assassinated; John Knox states that she just escaped the castle by the privy postern before the attackers entered the building.  She returned to Melgund after his death but did not long remain unattached.  She appears in records in June 1549 as 'Marion Ogilvy, the Lady of Melgund, the relict of the umquhill William Douglas'. It is probably that he died at the Battle of Pinkie on 10th September 1547. Also in 1549 there is an odd hint of trouble when, on 26th November 1549, she was charged with 'interlymning the Queen's Grace letters' and was obliged to give surety.  But this trouble seems to have passed and she lived peacefully thereafter. The Lady of Melgund died in mid 1575.  An Ogilvy to the end, she was buried according to the wishes of her will 'in the Ile of the Paroch Kirk of Kennell quhair my predecessouris lyis'.  There is no sure record of the cause of Marion's death, though there is an untrustworthy tradition that it was not natural.  The writer Elliot O'Donnell wrote (in Rooms of Mystery, London, 1931, p. 22):

Her death...is vested in mystery, there being no very sure foundation for the rumour, though it persisted, that she had met with foul play, after being kept in an underground chamber, the approach to which was through a secret subterranean passage.

David Beaton

   Marion and David had  eight children.  One son, Alexander, gained the Angus estate of Baikie from the disinherited Lyons, but lost it when the Glamis family were restored to their rights in 1543.  The eldest daughter of the couple was Margaret, who married David Lindsay, the future 10th Earl of Crawford, in some magnificence at Finavon Castle, bringing with her a huge tocher of 4000 merks.  Despite the glorious celebration the marriage was not a success and the estranged Margaret later went to live with her mother at Melgund Castle.  Another daughter, Agnes, married locally.  Her husband, John Ochterlony, owned the estate of Kelly, near Arbroath.  Her second husband was the Aberdeenshire laird George Gordon of Gight  (through their issue she is an ancestress of the poet Byron).  Elizabeth Beaton meanwhile married Alexander Lindsay of Vayne in Angus.  Other children of Ogilvy and Beaton included the brothers George (who possibly died in childhood), James, and John.

The Many Castles of Marion and the Cardinal?

The castles detailed below have various levels of connection with Marion Ogilvy and Cardinal Beaton, though they are interesting for their own histories.  Marion herself likely only inhabited the castles of Airlie, Ethie and Farnell, but the other houses here have some connection with either her or Beaton, albeit some are spurious. Dr Jamieson ('An Account of Some Remains of Antiquity in Forfarshire,' Archaeoligia Scotica 2 (1822) p. 26) gives a little known tradition about the cardinal in one place, which is almost certainly unhistorical:

The house of Dunbarrow, at a little distance from the hill [of Barry], is now built on. the place where a pleasure-house belonging to Cardinal Beaton stood. Here he kept a female friend. Part of the Cardinal's house is still standing.

   What went on inside the 'pleasure house' is unknown, and who the 'female friend' was is also a mystery.

Balfour Castle

      Balfour Castle in the parish of Kingoldrum was the home of a branch of the Ogilvys.  All that survives of it is a single circular tower, 6 storeys high, attached to which is a mid 19th century farmhouse.  Some surviving walls were torn down to make way for this modern building. The roof of the tower has been severed at a slant with a sloping roof and may have been several stories higher, though whether this was done at a remote date or in more recent times is disputed.   The Dorward family gave the lands here to the Abbey of Arbroath in the 13th century, and following the Ogilvys the Fotheringhams later owned the property.  Jervise (Memorials of Angus and Mearns, I, p. 21) states that it was in the hands of the Ogilvys from at least 1478 and that a likely builder of the stronghold was Walter Ogilvy, third son of Lord Ogilvy, brother of Marion Ogilvy.

Balfour Castle

Claypotts

   Claypotts is a wonderfully complete Z-plan castle now encompassed within the eastern suburbs of Dundee.  Dating from the mid 16th century it was built by the Strachan family, then passed through the hands of different branches of the Grahams.  Following the forfeiture of the Claverhouse Grahams the building passed to the Marquis of Douglas and was given to the state in the 1920s.  Despite its relatively well-preserved condition, Claypotts' charm has not endeared itself to every observer.  The venerable historian Alexander Warden sniffily comments, 'We are at quite a loss to understand how such a building of contracted extent could have supplied the wants of a landed family' (Angus or Forfarshire, volume 4, 139).   More pertinent to the subject of this piece, it is said that the castle is particularly haunted at Halloween, was once the home of a Brownie, and more particularly is the home of a White Lady who appears once a year, waving a handkerchief from an upper window every 29th May.  Was this Marion Ogilvy, as local tradition insisted?  According to A. H. Millar:

The story was that Cardinal Beaton built Claypotts for his beloved, and that from the upper window she could signal across the Tay to St Andrews Bay, to warn her priestly lover that she was longing for his return.  And on the 29th of May, 1546, she had waved her spotted kerchief in vain from the window of Claypotts, for her lover was then lying stark, cold, and still in the courtyard of St Andrews Castle, ruthlessly slain by some of those who had been his dearest friends... And thus every year...the White Lady of Claypotts endures her weary vigil...It is useless to assert that David Beaton never had anything to do with Claypotts... (Haunted Dundee, 1923, 117).

   Churlish to add, I suppose, that Claypotts Castle was not even built at that date.

Claypotts Castle

Colliston

   Colliston Castle survives entire and is in private hands.  Like Farnell, it is in the hinterland of Arbroath Abbey and was under the ownership of that institution. Built on a similar Z-plan like Claypotts, the building features a 'priest hole', suggesting Catholic ownership in the 17th century. The castle dates from the 16th century there is a tradition that it was built by Cardinal Beaton, but the facts are uncertain.  The estate was bestowed upon the Guthries by Beaton (probably following his daughter's marriage into the family) and the castle and lands passed through several families before coming into the hands of the Stuarts during the early 20th century.  A notable later owner was Gordon Stuart, who died in 2017 aged 91, a remarkable linguist who spoke 28 languages.

Colliston Castle

Ethie

   Another fine house which has survived as a living castle is Ethie, which had been extensively remodelled from the 16th to the 19th centuries and has been sold in its recent history. Possibly originating in the 14th century, the castle was the property of the monks of Arbroath  and therefore came into the hands of Beaton.  At the Reformation there was a rumour that the monks hid their church vessels, plates and vestments in the walls of the building.  After a period of ownership by the Maxwells it was in the ownership of the Carnegie Earls of Northesk from 1565 to 1928.  It has latterly operated as a hotel.

   The ghosts in the castle include an anonymous Grey lady and Cardinal and Chancellor Beaton himself.  He is experienced as a noisy resonance near what used to be his own chamber, draging his gouty leg along the passageways apparently. A third ghost (now laid) was that of a young child which child could be heard crying at night. Some people thought they heard  a wheeled toy being pulled across the floor in one particular room in the castle. Eventually, a small skeleton was uncovered and, beside it, the remains of a toy wooden cart. The pathetic remains were buried and this ghost of was no longer heard at Ethie.

Ethie Castle

Farnell

   Farnell Castle near Brechin was said to have been in a ruinous condition in 1570 (in a report made to Lord Ogilvy).  It also later came into the hands of a branch of the Carnegie family (in 1623) and in the mid 19th century was restored to some extent and used as a home or hospital for former workers on the family estate, or 'allotted as a free dwelling to some infirm or indigent people', as the New Statistical Account reported. The building may be the successor of a very early structure and the site became the home of the bishops of Brechin. Its ecclesiastical associations perhaps explain why it does not feature much in any tumultuous episodes in the history of Angus.  More recent use has seen the castle used as a school and tea-room on occasions and it was recently offered for residential rent.  Some sources state that Beaton owned the castle, but details are hard to come by.

Farnell Castle

Melgund

   Judging my her self-styled title of Lady of Melgund, this was Marion's favourite, or at least most frequented habitation in the latter part of her life.  The estate of North Melgund (Aberlemno parish) had been in the inheritance of the Annand family, and Janet Annand married the Cardinal's older brother James in the 1520s.  Following the death of his brother, David Beaton purchased the lands. Melgund remained in the Beaton family until the 1630s, when it was acquired by the Marquis of Huntly.  Later the last Gordon owners of the castle all mysteriously vanished one evening, leaving an uneaten meal on the tale and Melgund itself like a land-bound Mary Celeste.  The castle's beginnings are also said to be uncanny.  During the latter part of the 20th century the castle was fully restored and is now again inhabited.

Melgund Castle

Vayne

   The ruins of Vayne Castle stand on the north bank of the Noran Water and have several things in common with some of the buildings above:  it was a stronghold of the Carnegies (Southesk branch) and had little actual connection with either David Beaton or his common law wife. The Lindsay family may have had an interest in the estate before them.  Now a ruin, the castle was plundered over the course of time for building materials by local farmers, one of whom used gunpowder to gain his stone work.  Buried treasure is allegedly another feature of its story.  Jervise in Land of the Lindsays (p. 202) says:

a deep dungeon is said to be below, into which the family, before taking their final departure, threw all their treasure of money and plate! This chamber has been often sought for, and only one person is believed ever to have found it.  When about to descend in search of the valuables, however, he was forcibly thrust from the mouth of the yawning gulf by an uncouth monster in the shape of a horned ox, who departed in a blaze of fire through a big hold in the wall (still pointed out!) and, before the terrified treasure-seeker could recover himself, the chasm which he had sought so hard to discover, was again shut from his view!

   Concerning the supposed connection with the cardinal, Alexander Warden writes (in Angus or Forfarshire, III, p. 274):

Tradition points to Cardinal Beaton as the builder of Vayne Castle, but
this is not the case, and he does not appear ever to have had any connection
with it. It also points to a deep pool in a dark cavern in the river, near the
Castle, called Tammy's Hole or Cradle, as the spot where one of his sons fell
over the precipice and was drowned. A boy of the name may have been
drowned in the pool, and the name originated from the event, but he was no
son of the Cardinal and his fair friend.

   The story may possibly have its origins in the circumstance of Beaton and Marion Ogilvy's daughter marrying Alexander Lindsay of Vayne.  Whether the tale relates to one of their children is unknown.

Vayne Castle