We are recently back from a trip to Scotland.

We visited Perth museum (among many interesting exhibits it has some 17th costumes, which may work their way into the books), the Crannoch Centre (which I can highly recommend, but is about 2,000 years early for my period) and Elcho Castle. This is a ‘fortified tower house’ built by the Wemyss family around 1560. Still a century before my books, but still in use at that time, more for a ‘second home’ than as a fortified residence. Well equipped for both owners and guests (at least 13 privies, including some ‘en-suite’!), with grand views over the surrounding countryside and down to the Tay from the rooftop walkways, it seems to have been a holiday home for the Wemyss family, one of the most prominent in the area.

I’d like to work it into a future book, particularly as it’s not too far from Abernethy, notionally the Scottish seat of Sarah/Chas’s grandfather.

The castle represents a transition from the Medieval keep to the Early Modern mansion. Within the outer walls (now gone) were probably ornamental, herb and kitchen gardens, as well as orchards – the orchards now there are recent planting, but represent traditional varieties of apples, pears and plum.