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Ballone Castle is a large late 16th century Z-plan tower house. It consists of a main block of three storeys and a garret, and a round tower and square stair-tower projecting from opposite corners. There are two ruined stair turrets. Corelled-out bartizans crown the corners, and have shot-holes and stone roofs. A courtyard enclosed ranges of buildings, including a bakehouse.
The arched entrance, at the foot of one stair-tower leads to the main turnpike stair, which climbs only to the first floor. The upper floors are reached by the turret stairs. In the square tower is a guardroom and small adjoining vaulted prisons. The main block basement is vaulted and contains the kitchen, which had an arched fireplace; and wine cellar, with a small stair up to the hall above. The hall on the first floor had a private chamber off the main block.
The lands were a property of the Earl of Ross, but passed to the Dunbars of Tarbat in 1507, then to the Mackenzies in 1623, who were made Earls of Cromartie in 1703 and changed the name to Castlehaven. It was abandoned in favour of Tarbat House, a three storey classical mansion, in the late 17th century, and wa ruined by 1680. Although long unroofed, the castle has been restored.
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.