Wardhouse Castle

Overview

Wardhouse Castle, also known as Wardhouse Tower, is a ruined medieval tower house located near Insch in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Built in the 16th century, it served as a fortified residence for a branch of the Leslie family, one of the region’s most prominent landowning dynasties. Though now little more than a fragmentary ruin surrounded by farmland, Wardhouse Castle once formed part of the network of lairdly towers that defined rural life and local power in the north-east of Scotland during the late Middle Ages.

Early history

The lands of Wardhouse were granted to the Leslie family in the 15th century, at a time when many noble and gentry families in Aberdeenshire were building stone tower houses to replace earlier timber halls. The castle likely dates from the early 1500s and would have served as the seat of a cadet branch of the Leslies of Balquhain or Rothienorman. Its name — “Wardhouse” — may refer to a watch or guard post, suggesting that it occupied a site of local strategic importance overlooking the valley of the River Ury.

Building and layout

Wardhouse Castle was probably an L-plan tower house, a form popular in the north-east during the 16th century. Constructed of local rubble stone with dressed quoins, it would have risen three or four storeys high, with a vaulted basement and living chambers above. The projecting stair-tower, typical of the period, provided access between floors. Narrow slit windows and thick walls offered protection, while larger upper windows indicated a shift toward comfort and status rather than pure defence. The tower may have been enclosed by a small courtyard or barmkin containing ancillary buildings and gardens.

Later history and decline

By the 17th century, the Leslies had relocated their main residence to the more modern Wardhouse Mansion, built nearby, leaving the old tower to fall into disuse. Like many similar structures, it was gradually abandoned as fortified living became obsolete. By the 18th century, Wardhouse Castle was already described as a ruin, its stonework partially robbed for farm buildings. The later mansion and estate passed through the Gordon family and eventually became part of the extensive Wardhouse estate known for its 18th-century Palladian house, now also in ruin.

Present condition

Today, only low walls and fragments of Wardhouse Castle’s base survive amid fields west of Insch. The site, though modest in scale, retains archaeological value as an example of a 16th-century laird’s tower in Aberdeenshire. It is a Scheduled Monument, protected for its contribution to understanding rural lordship, defence, and domestic life in early modern Scotland. While the later Wardhouse Mansion often overshadows its medieval predecessor, the surviving traces of Wardhouse Castle recall an earlier era — when towers, not estates, defined the presence and power of Scotland’s landed families.