Visit Ravenscraig Castle Scotland

Ravenscraig Castle is located on a narrow, rocky promontory between Kirkcaldy and Dysart harbours. It is dramatically sited and possesses, too, an evocative name. Sir Walter Scott mentioned the castle in his The Lay of the Last Minstrel, although he called it Ravensheuch. Scott related how the lovely but doomed Rosabelle ignored warnings and insisted on crossing the stormy Firth of Forth.

Moor, moor the barge, ye gallant crew!
And gentle ladye, deign to stay!
Rest thee in Castle Ravensheuch,
Nor tempt the stormy firth today.

Going from the fictional drowning of Rosabelle of the lordly line of high St
Clair to fact, the St Clair, or Sinclair, family did have a long association with
Ravenscraig. The Sinclairs owned Ravenscraig for 400 years after acquiring it from the Crown in 1470. Prior to their arrival, Ravenscraig had been a royal stronghold. Commissioned by James II as a coastal defence fortress and dower-house for Mary of Gueldres, his Burgundian queen, Ravenscraig was started in 1460. Although James II died later that year, killed when one of his own cannon burst, work continued until the death of the queen three years later. James II's long standing and fatal interest in artillery probably explains why Ravenscraig is one of the earliest examples of an artillery-age fortification. Fronted by a dry moat cut from solid rock, the main entrance, which is on the landward side, passes through the central range. Both this range and the two massive, semi-circular towers that flank it are of great thickness to provide protection against artillery bombardment. The gunports that pierce these walls and the gun-platforms inside the castle show that the builders had designed a fortress where artillery also provided the main means of defence.

In 1470 Ravenscraig was given by James III to William, Lord Sinclair, in exchange for the Sinclair lands in Orkney. Although it remained in Sinclair hands until 1896 the castle had long ceased to be a place of residence. When Dysart House and estate, which included Ravenscraig, went on the market in 1896, it was purchased by linoleum manufacturer Michael Nairn. During the First World War this ancient fortification was once again utilised for a military purpose, as an ammunition store. In 1929 the Nairns sold Dysart House, but handed over the grounds for conversion into a municipal park. The new Ravenscraig Park, got its name from the ancient fortification that lies at its western extremity. Tour Fife Scotland.