OS1/13/53/51

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51 Parish of Moonzie.

[Quotation Page 1 of 3] "In the Craufurd family there were many individuals who were distinguished for their talents their bravery and for the high situations which they occupied in the government of the country Alexander the third Earl of Craufurd who lived in the reign of James II [2nd] was a man of singular character and from the fierceness and cruelty of his temper and his undaunted courage he was surnamed the "Tiger", and from his long black bushy beard he received the appellation of Earl Beardie. Though a great part of his property and his principal residence were in Angus it is generally understood that he resided occasionally in Fife. He is said to have built the Castle of Lordscairnie in the parish of Moonzie and this account is confirmed by its being called Earl Beardies Castle to this day. It is a large and lofty building being fifty four feet in length and forty in breadth over walls and four stories high. The walls are nearly 4 feet thick are composed of every kind of stones and bound together by the strongest cement. The ground floor it is likely was occupied with kitchen and cellars and the second with the great baronial hall. It is now in a very delapidated state. The outward walls or shell of the castle still remains but the roof and floors are entirely gone and even the [ rilats] of the windows and the corner stones of the building have disappeared. The tenants of the estate who were formerly in the habit of making a quarry to obtain stones for building houses or dikes are now very properly prohibited by the leases from making any further encroachments upon it. There was formerly a wall of considerable height and thickness round the castle called the "Rampart Wall" including several acres of ground and having towers on it at some distance from each [continued]

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