Blackcraig Castle is a Baronial mansion house close to the towns of Ballintuim and Blairgowrie on the banks of the River Ardle. It was built in 1856 by Patrick Allan Fraser, a prominent Scottish artist and architect, and is designated as a Class B-listed building, with its walled garden A-listed. It has undergone extensive renovations/modernisation in recent years to return it to its full former glory and remains one of the finest examples of Baronial architecture in Scotland.
Surveys suggest that, originally occupying the site of Blackcraig Castle was a 16th-century tower house thought to be the property of the Maxwells’, who were in possession of the barony of Ballmacreuchy by 1550.
The current owners have been renovating Blackcraig and its policies since 2013 with a view to returning it to its former splendour. Two tasteful self-contained holiday apartments have also been incorporated and are available to rent. Although the castle and its policies are private, there are plans to open them to the public for events in the future.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.