A-Listed Castle & Chapel | GLM

When it came on the market this magnificent A-listed castle, in a prominent elevated position facing south over the Forth, was something of a puzzle. It had stood empty and unlived in for generations and there were areas of hacked plasterwork where rot had been traced in the past. GLM was commissioned to carry out a detailed pre-acquisition building condition survey to advise on what it would take to put it into good order. We were able to advise that, thanks to some grant aided repair work carried out 20 years ago the external fabric was in pretty good order. The interior and services, however, required complete upgrading.

A major feature of the castle had once been a magnificent Orangery. In the 1960s this had been ignominiously truncated by having its roof removed and replaced by a much lower lean-to to make way for a caretaker's flat. At the rear of the castle there were signs of various bits of building which had been removed. The deconsecrated Victorian Episcopal Chapel of St Serf in the grounds had been allowed to come close to falling into ruin for lack of maintenance and had also been badly vandalised. GLM was subsequently appointed by the purchaser of the castle to convert it back into a family house, recovering the historic quality of the building in the process and providing it with all the services of a comfortable contemporary home, albeit one on a grand scale.

Part of the brief was to reinstate the Orangery and to build a new cottage for the caretaker. GLM have taken charge of the conservation of the chapel with works including a new roof covering, new leaded windows, a repaired stained glass rose window, the consolidation of much damaged stencilled internal plasterwork, and making good the disintegrating quarry tiled floor.