DRUMSAGARD CASTLE(*)

South Lanarkshire

Ruin or site, OS64 NS666597.

100m Southwest of Hallside Village, Cambuslang.

Drumsagard from Druim-saigard, hill of the priests

Nothing remains of Drumsagard Castle, a 14th century stone castle on a rounded, flat topped mound at the end of a ridge. There was an early castle on this site, John Murray of Drumsagard being one of those forfeited by Edward 1 in 1306 as penalty for supporting Robert the Bruce during the Wars of Independence. This same gentleman had married the heiress of Malise, Earl of Strathearn in 1299, and their descendants became the Murrays of Tullibardine. The Murrays were a related family to that at Bothwell, descended from Walter de Moravia who had married the Olifard (Oliphant) heiress of the Justiciar of Lothian, owner of the baronies of Drumsagard and Bothwell. The caput of his Drumsagard barony was the impressive motte at Greenlees Hill, just north of the Burnside-East Kilbride road, between Greenlees Rd and Turnlaw Rd. In common with Bothwell, Drumsagard passed to the Douglasses in 1370, though on their forfeiture in 1455, it passed to the Hamiltons. Drumsagard was a ruin by 1796, and the remaining stone used to build the Hallside Farms nearby.

The Hamiltons retained the property until the 1920's, when all the land was sold. Westburn House, built in 1685 had become the main residence of the Drumsagard barony, and was demolished this century. There remains a doocote on Cambuslang Golf Course, and another that matches on the banks of the Clyde at Daldowie, though this probably belonged to another property.

The Hamiltons also had an 18thC "lodge" on Dechmonthill, the grounds of which are now used as a firing range by the Territorial Army, a fact that keeps me on my toes at weekends when gunfire can be heard from where I sit when writing.

The name of the barony was changed to Cambuslang in the 17thC.