Newton Castle

Newton Castle, Blairgowrie, dates from the fourteenth century and is haunted by the ghost of ‘Lady Jean’. Her story is well known. She was Lady Jean Drummond, and she fell desperately in love with a local laird. He had dallied with her for a while but had become distracted by another woman. In order to win back the affection of her
beloved, Lady Jean did her very best to make herself attractive. She dressed in finest silks and satins, wore shoes with silver buckles and adorned her braided hair with pearls and precious stones. The transformation in her appearance, however, was not enough to bring the heartless scoundrel back. She took to spending her time singing mournful songs of lost love as she sat alone in a tower of the castle. Eventually she sought the advice of a local witch. The witch told her that her fine clothes were no good. She must dress in witchin’ claith o’ green’. In order to do this, she must cut grass from the churchyard, take a branch of a rowan tree from the
gallows-knowe and bind them together with a plaited reed. Then she was to take them as darkness was falling to the Corbie Stone by the Cobble pool and sit there and wait. This the Lady Jean did. After waiting for some time, she became aware of the sound of laughter. She could feel a strange sensation, as if something was pulling at her clothes. She fell asleep, and when she awoke at dawn she was dressed all in green.

The magic of the witch had worked, for Jean married her great love, Lord Ronald, still wearing the ‘witchin’ claith’. Her new husband was quite besotted with his bride in her strange green dress. The wedding ceremony had hardly taken place, however, than dissster struck. Lord Ronald looked at his bride and saw that something was far wrong. He took her hand in his, but it felt deathly cold. Then, to his horror, Jean let out an unearthly scream, fell to the ground and died. Her lifeless body was laid out on the bed where the wedding couple were to have consummated the marriage. Lady Jean was buried earby, and her gravestone is said to turn round three times each Halloween. Then the sound of her sad singing comes wafting from the tower at Newton Castle.

Return to Scottish Castles