NY 774844/Ruin/Access

Alexander II of Scotland gave the manor of Chirdon in 1230 to his sister Margaret who in turn granted it to David de Lindsay. Dally Castle is believed to have been erected by David Linsey in his manor of Chirdon, referred to in a document of 1237 as the 'house with remarkably thick walls in the form of a tower' In the same year, 1237 Henry de Bolebec, Sheriff of Northumberland , complained to Henry II of England that de Lindsay was erecting a thickly walled tower that he intended to embattle. The constuction would then appeared to have stopped. In 1255 there was no mention of a Castle. The Castle is not mentioned in the 1215 or the 1451 lists. Remains of a fortified house, later remodelled as a tower house, situated on the summit of a ridge within a meander of the Chirdon Burn. The fortified house is visible as a rectangular structure measuring 20.9m by 11.8m, with walls of regular sandstone blocks 1.8m thick. The building is thought to be early C13 in date and its basic plan is an upper floor hall house above a columned basement. In the later C13 and C14 the house was remodelled into a tower house and a number of features were added; these include a square tower at the north west corner, a tower at the north east corner, a pair of butresses on the north wall and a small tower at the south west corner. .