A Victorian Shooting Lodge.
Balintore Castle was commissioned by David Lyon MP (1794-1872) as a shooting lodge for the elite of Victorian society.
Built in the late mid to late 1800’s, it was designed by architect William Burns, who’s other work includes Edinburgh Academy and the Church of St John the Evangelist, also in Edinburgh.
David Lyon’s family business included investments in the East India Company and large interests in Jamaica. A slave owner, on the abolishment of slavery in 1833, he was compensated for over 2,000 slaves held on 13 estates.
In the 1960’s it was decided not to repair the extensive dry rot that had taken hold in the castle and it was abandoned. Angus Council used its compulsory purchase powers to buy it from its absentee Far Eastern owners and it is now in the hands of a Scotsman who is restoring it and residing there.
A reference to ‘Balintor’ on one of the 14thc cartographer Timothy Pont’s maps is thought to be Balintore House at the bottom of the west drive of the Castle. Whilst this property looks Georgian on the outside, it is thought to disguise a medieval core.
