Ghostly Castle in Scotland
Way Of The Ray
New look for this old haunt
Morag McKinnon
WITH a resident ghost, a chequered history of family feuds and dastardly
characters and a host of royal visitors to boast about, Melville Castle
has a past that meets all the criteria for a traditional Scottish
castle.
But if it wasn’t for one family living very much in the present, the
230-year-old property would soon have been nothing but a memory.
In 1993 the Hays bought the derelict castle and started renovating and
restoring it almost immediately. After ten years of hard work the castle
has just reopened its doors, and even though it has cost them in excess
of £3 million to complete the job, the family claim it’s been worth the
cash to see the ruin returned to its former glory.
"I couldn’t say that it has been a labour of love but I have enjoyed
seeing it all take shape," says owner William Hay. "It’s a great
commitment to make and once you’ve started a project like this you
really have to finish it - sort of like swimming the Channel, I suppose.
I have been very hands-on and been on site nearly every day."
A grade A listed building, set in the heart of a 50-acre woodland
estate, Melville Castle was turned from a family home to a hotel after
the second World War, and Hay remembers it as a popular hang-out for
Edinburgh society types 30 years ago. "It was a weekend bolt-hole for
fashionable people in the city, and we used to come out here a lot. That
was in the days when the licensing and drink driving laws were more
relaxed, and when they toughened up, a lot of the hotels on the
periphery of Edinburgh lost trade," he explains.
"It continued to be a hotel, then was leased out, but eventually ended
up in a derelict state when rot set in. I had actually forgotten about
the castle until ten years ago when it came on the market. After six
months it still hadn’t been sold. I decided to buy it and by August 1993
it was mine."
Hay, the senior trustee of a family consortium that has a number of
properties in and around the capital and who actually lives in
Murrayfield, has restored the castle without any financial aid from
heritage groups. But he is sure he will now make his money back as the
newly renovated building has opened as a 33-room hotel.
When he first arrived, the five-storey mansion was in very poor
condition with floors collapsing and rain pouring in through the
numerous holes in the roof due to wet rot.
"We stripped the building back to the stonework and there is now not a
single piece of original timber or plaster left in the castle. The work
was split into three phases. Phase one was when we strengthened the
structure, in phase two we put down all the concrete floors and in phase
three we did all the finishings, which included joinery work and the
electrics. We have now just completed all the decoration and
furnishing."
Originally built in 1786 on the site of an old medieval castle, Melville
Castle was constructed for the 1st Viscount Melville. The Viscount, or
Henry Dundas as he was known, bought the original property in 1780 and
then commissioned James Playfair, the leading Scottish architect of the
day, to design him a new building.
Dundas, who was a well known advocate in Edinburgh, bought the site at
Dalkeith for his country home, and the building that now houses the
Royal Bank of Scotland’s headquarters in St Andrews Square was his
residence in town. He was also dubbed the "highest man in Edinburgh"
after the city’s authorities placed a statue of him rather than the king
on top of a column in the centre on St Andrew Square, and he can still
be seen today.
While his descendants moved out of Melville Castle more than 50 years
ago, it is believed that Dundas himself is responsible for the ghost
which haunts the castle, according to Hay.
"From time to time an apparition may be seen, apparently of Elizabeth
Rannie, who in 1770 had inherited a vast fortune and was persuaded to
marry the shrewd and calculating Henry Dundas. This association led to
her financial ruin and moral collapse, and her distraught spirit may be
seen occasionally passing through the doorway of the library bar.
"The ghost was first seen gliding through a solid wall. we found a
doorway in the spot she passed through when we stripped it back, which
really was quite something."
Steeped in history, the castle has been visited by a number of prominent
figures such as Mary Queen of Scots who used it as a hunting lodge when
she would visit the apartments of her Italian secretary David Rizzio,
who was later murdered by her jealous husband Lord Darnley.
Queen Victoria also stayed in the castle as did George IV, who inspected
the Lothian and Border Yeomanry on the south lawn.
Along with the hotel, the Hays also have an assault course in the
grounds, which is used for team building by a corporate training company
whose clients include the Royal Bank of Scotland and Standard Life.
"We believe that this will be a very successful business and we have
already had a great deal of interest from both home and abroad regarding
weddings and functions. But it has to be said that for the money we have
spent restoring this castle, it would actually have been cheaper to
build a 30-bedroom hotel from scratch. But I do feel that it has been
worth all the effort now it is finished."