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Melgund Castle, lying around two kilometres due east of Aberlemno, is a 16th-century L-plan castle which has been partially restored as a private residence.
The land was initially held by the Cramonds, but it passed to the Clan Bethune or Beaton. castle has been said to have been built in 1543 on the orders of Cardinal David Beaton, Archbishop of St Andrews and Chancellor of Scotland, as a home for himself and his mistress, Margaret Ogilvie. However, Charles McKean has argued that the work of the 1540s was a re-modelling of an earlier building. Other sources believe that the builder of the castle was probably David Bethune, son of the Cardinal and Ogilvie, and date the building to about 1560. It much later passed by marriage to the Earls of Minto, who were granted the title Viscount Melgund, presently used by the heir to the earldom. It remained in the family until it was sold in 1990.
The castle was extensively investigated by archaeologists between 1990 and 1996 in preparation for its partial conversion into a residence. The work was completed in August 2002, mostly using local materials which included stone from a specially re-opened quarry nearby. The domestic range to the east of the keep has been retained in its ruined state and the primary exterior difference is the new roof to the keep.
It comprised a four-storey keep with an attic and a stair tower that appears to have been raised to act as a watchtower. Its two-storey domestic range on the east had a round tower at the north-east corner.
References:The Château du Haut-Koenigsbourg is situated in a strategic area on a rocky spur overlooking the Upper Rhine Plain, it was used by successive powers from the Middle Ages until the Thirty Years' War when it was abandoned. From 1900 to 1908 it was rebuilt at the behest of the German kaiser Wilhelm II. Today it is a major tourist site, attracting more than 500,000 visitors a year.
The first records of a castle built by the Hohenstaufens date back to 1147. The fortress changed its name to Koenigsburg (royal castle) around 1157. The castle was handed over to the Tiersteins by the Habsburgs following its destruction in 1462. They rebuilt and enlarged it, installing a defensive system designed to withstand artillery fire.
The fortification work accomplished over the 15th century did not suffice to keep the Swedish artillery at bay during the Thirty Years War, and the defences were overrun.