Fordell Castle

A charter of 1217 already shows the lands of Fordell being parcelled out: Richard, son of Hugh de Camera, granted part of them to the Abbey of Inchcolm with the consent of his wife and his son. William de Hercht held the lands by 1240, and by 1428 Sir William de Erth was Lord of Fordell — the same de Erth who had earlier served as a hostage for James I, held at Durham in 1423–24 and at Pontefract in 1426–27. On his death the estate broke apart into fractional shares, and John Henrisoun was serving as sergeant of Fordell by 1465. It was James Henrysoun, a burgess of Edinburgh, who between 1510 and 1512 redeemed his own inherited portion from mortgage and bought out at least five co-heirs, reassembling the estate into a barony granted by James IV in 1511.

James Henderson, 3rd of Fordell, began extending the castle in 1566. The masons Robert Peris and James Orrok had made good progress on a 'house of great quantity' when, on 5 June 1567, William Spittal of Luquhat halted the work, claiming his own title to the Fordell lands. A fire damaged the castle the following year and it was rebuilt; most of the Z-plan tower house standing today dates from 1580 or later. Later in the century the Hendersons began working the estate's coal seams, which became the basis of the family's wealth.

Two lairds of Fordell died in the field in the decades after the barony was founded. James Henryson, 1st of Fordell — appointed Advocate to James IV in 1494 and Clerk of Justiciary in 1507 — was killed alongside the king at the Battle of Flodden in 1513, his eldest son dying with him. The next laird, George Henderson, 2nd of Fordell, was killed with his own eldest son, William, at the Battle of Pinkie in 1547. A later laird, Sir John Henderson, 5th of Fordell, was a soldier taken prisoner while commanding on the African coast before fighting for the Royalist cause in the Civil War, during which Charles I knighted him; in 1651 Fordell itself was damaged by troops of Oliver Cromwell's army garrisoned there.

A carving above the entrance to the Great Hall, known as the witch stone, is said to depict Margaret Echlin (née Henderson) of Pittadro, daughter of James Henderson, 3rd of Fordell. Accused of witchcraft, she was imprisoned in 1649; before she could be brought to trial she was found dead, apparently poisoned. Local tradition holds that the nearby Witch Knowe was used for burning witches, the last such burning also dated to 1649. The following year Sir John Henderson rebuilt St Theriot's Chapel as a family mausoleum.

By the 19th century the family had built a new mansion, Fordell House, nearby, and the castle itself was rarely occupied — the Great Hall is said to have served for a time as a stable. George Mercer-Henderson modernised the castle and installed its gates, and the north front was rebuilt in 1855 to a design by Robert Hay. In 1953 John Hampden Mercer-Henderson, 8th Earl of Buckinghamshire, divided the nearly 2,000-acre estate, selling the land west of the Fordell Burn; the walled garden at Pittadro was sold on for use as a commercial nursery.

Sir Nicholas Fairbairn, the controversial lawyer and Conservative politician, bought Fordell in 1961 and restored it as a private residence with his wife, Lady Sam Fairbairn; after his death in 1995 he was buried in the crypt below the Chapel of St Theriot. The castle passed to Dr Lorraine Inglis and her husband, the veterinarian Bill Inglis, around 1995, then to the businessman Andrew Berry around 1999, who carried out extensive restoration. In November 2007 it was sold for £3,850,000 to Stuart Simpson, 17th Baron of Fordell — the fifth-highest price then paid for a home in Scotland — and the castle remains privately owned and category A listed.