In its glory days in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, Midhope Castle would have stood as a proud tower-house rising six storeys above the fertile lands of the Hopetoun estate, its slate roof and crow-stepped gables visible from the Forth. Approaching along a rough estate track, visitors would have passed through the south courtyard, enclosed on one side by the tall oblong tower and on the other by lower ranges and garden walls, then climbed the external steps to the slightly elevated entrance above the vaulted basement. Inside, oak staircases with twisted balusters linked a series of warmed chambers, each lit by deep-set windows in thick stone walls and furnished in keeping with a lairdly residence of the Earls of Hopetoun. Beyond the house, a fine walled garden and productive policies stretched away from the walls, so impressive that contemporaries described Midhope around 1710 as a “fine tower-house with excellent gardens, one of the seats of the Earl of Hopetoun.”
In its glory days in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, Midhope Castle would have stood as a proud tower-house rising six storeys above the fertile lands of the Hopetoun estate, its slate roof and crow-stepped gables visible from the Forth. Approaching along a rough estate track, visitors would have passed through the south courtyard, enclosed on one side by the tall oblong tower and on the other by lower ranges and garden walls, then climbed the external steps to the slightly elevated entrance above the vaulted basement. Inside, oak staircases with twisted balusters linked a series of warmed chambers, each lit by deep-set windows in thick stone walls and furnished in keeping with a lairdly residence of the Earls of Hopetoun. Beyond the house, a fine walled garden and productive policies stretched away from the walls, so impressive that contemporaries described Midhope around 1710 as a “fine tower-house with excellent gardens, one of the seats of the Earl of Hopetoun.”