Newark Castle, Fife
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Fife
Fife is a council area and former county of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries to Perth and Kinross and Clackmannanshire...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. Building on the site probably dates back to the 13th century at which time the Scottish king Alexander III
Alexander III of Scotland
Alexander III was King of Scots from 1249 to his death.-Life:...
(1241 - 1286) spent some of his childhood there. Since that time, the site has passed through several rebuilding phases, and it is most likely that the ruins currently visible are the remains of buildings constructed under the ownership of David Leslie in the 17th century and the Sandilands family who owned the castle since the 15th Century when they gained the estate through marriage. Leslie was a prominent figure in the English
English Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
and Scottish Civil Wars, becoming Lord Newark after the wars.
The castle attracted the attention of Sir William Burrell, the Glasgow shipping magnate and collector of art and antiques, in the late 19th Century when Sir Robert Lorimer produced a plan for its restoration. The scheme never went ahead as the owner of the site, a Mr Baird of Elie, refused to sell.
The castle has been known by several names, including Inverie, St Monans and St Monance (the latter being a mediaeval form of the possessive St Monan's).