Callendar House

• Location: Callendar Road, Falkirk, FK1
• Opening times: Wednesday to Monday 10.00am – 5.00pm; closed Tuesdays
• Entry: Free
• Access: Free parking on site.

‘House’ might be a bit of an understatement as Callendar House is massive, far bigger than many of the castles that appear on this website. I reached it by walking through a thicket of trees between the carpark and the property, and it was a minor gobsmacker when it came into view. Our pals at Wikipedia say that Callendar House has a 300 feet / 91 metres frontage but even knowing this does not prepare one for the sheer scale of the place. With its array of circular, cone-slated towers and turrets, it looks not unlike a squat version of Disney’s Sleeping Beauty Castle. Or, at the very least, like a squat Renfrew Town Hall.

Equally impressive is the amount of history compressed into the site upon which Callendar House stands. The Antonine Wall, built in the second century CE (and previously visited here, here, and here), ran by here, and part of its ditch survives in Callendar Park. Ten centuries later the area was the stronghold of the Thanes of Callendar, although their hall was east of the current building. In the 1300s the 5^th Thane, Sir Patrick Callendar, backed the wrong horse when he supported Edward Balliol’s claim to the Scottish throne, As a result he was attainted and his estates forfeited, being granted by David II to Sir William Livingston in 1345.

It is with the Livingstons that Mary Queen of Scots enters the story, as she inevitably does whenever the word ‘castle’ is mentioned, even if in this case it’s a bit Disney. Alexander, the 5^th Lord Livingston was one of the guardians of the infant Mary. He was also one of the nobles who rejected Henry VIII’s plan of marrying the Scottish queen off to his son Edward. The petulant Henry, a truly despicable human being who doubled as one of history’s greatest man-babies, launched a series of attacks into Scotland in response, an action known as the ‘Rough Wooing’. The decision to give Henry the KB is believed to have been made in Callender House.

Mary was moved to Inchmahome Priory for safekeeping while her guardians pondered suitable alternative future husbands for her, and settled the Dauphin of France, the future Francis II. The agreement pledging Mary to Francis was signed here at Callendar House. Mary was then moved to Dumbarton Castle, where she stayed several months before sailing from there to France in 1548. Alexander accompanied Mary on her voyage and died in Paris two years later. Also sailing with Alexander was his daughter Mary, who was one of the Queen of Scots’ famous ‘Four Marys’ along with Mary Seton, Mary Beaton, and Mary Fleming. Be wary of the traditional ballad, which just muddies the waters by namechecking a Mary Carmichael and implies a Mary Hamilton. Seriously, is you can’t trust a traditional ballad, what can you trust?  

Mary returned as an adult to Callendar House on 1 September 1565, during the nonsense called the Chaseabout Raid. This was a rebellion on the part of some Protestant lords, including Mary’s half-brother the Earl of Moray, up to their usual anti-Catholic skullduggery. They assembled an army so Mary raised her own, but the rebels never stood their ground, resulting in Mary’s forces, led by the queen herself, chasing the rebels all around central Scotland throughout September and into October. When no support was forthcoming from England, the rebel lords realised the jig was up and melted away.  

Livingston loyalty to the House of Stuart remained strong into the next generation, with another Alexander Livingston. He had been made the 1^st Earl of Linlithgow by Mary’s son James VI, and the king was staying at Callendar House the night his daughter the Princess Elizabeth was born. On hearing the news he immediately rode to her bedside at Dunfermline Palace. James would later entrust the care of his daughter to the Earl of Linlithgow and his wife. Elizabeth would later become Queen of Bohemia following her marriage to Frederick V but would have become queen of England at age nine if the Gunpowder Plotters had their way. If they had succeeded in blowing up James VI, now also James I of England, they planned installing Elizabeth on the throne as Catholic puppet queen.

The Livingstons would ultimately lose the house the same way their predecessors the Callendars did, by backing the wrong horse. James, 5^th Earl of Linlithgow and 4^th Earl of Callendar, continued his family’s undying loyalty to the Stuarts by supporting the Old Pretender, during the 1715 Jacobite Uprising, and after its failure fled into exile. His estates were seized by the crown but eventually leased back to his daughter, Lady Anne Livingston, in 1724. The Young Pretender, inexplicably known to history as ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ stayed at Callendar House prior to the Battle of Falkirk during the 1745 Uprising. Lady Anne’s husband, the Earl of Kilmarnock, fought for the Jacobite cause at Culloden, after which he was captured and executed for treason. Lady Anne’s son, the 15^th Earl of Errol, was the last Livingstone to live in the property, after which it was bought by the coppersmith William Forbes (1756 – 1823), and it is he who was responsible for much of the building we see today.  

Callendar House is now an attractive museum telling both the story of the building and the surrounding area. It also has a couple of rooms used as exhibition galleries and a tearoom. I avoided the latter as it would almost certainly have resulted in the ordering of a scone with cream and jam, which would have been undoubtedly delicious but utterly superfluous as I had eaten just before setting off to Callendar House. Gotta watch those calories!  

Destination or Diversion?

I spent well over an hour at Callendar House, and if it wasn’t so biting cold outside would have had a wander around the park in search of the Antonine Wall and the Forbes Mausoleum. Throw in a possible stop in the tearoom, and you’re talking a full afternoon out, so I’m calling this particular site a destination.