Please Object to Latest Wind Farm Threat

Three years ago there was a planning application to build a wind farm of 6 turbines on Mile Hill adjacent to Balintore Castle. With other local residents, I fought the proposal - putting work on the castle on hold for three months. It is no exaggeration to say that during this period, and the following 18 months, while Angus Council pondered their decision, we were is a state of high and continuous stress due to the devastating effect this wind farm would have on the area. Eventually the developer withdrew on the grounds of "unsuitable wind conditions".


We thought we were safe for the future, but just 6 months ago a new wind farm proposal was mooted by some of the same developers. This time there are 9 turbines on top of Carroch Hill, and ironically these are even closer to the castle. It was our worst nightmare, a zombie wind farm terrorising the area, having come back from the dead. :-( Again, we are trying to fight, but with the previous trauma it is extremely painful and even more difficult to get motivated. However, I have just sent my objection letter to the council, and I wonder if you could help by doing the same? 


You can email Angus Council on:


Planning@angus.gov.uk


or fill up an online form here (where full details of the wind farm are available):


Online planning feedback form


or write to the council directly:


The Planning Officer
Planning & Transport Division
Angus House
Orchardbank Business Park
Forfar DD8 1AX


I am setting-up a facebook group. I have not done this before so bear with me. The link is:


Stop Carrach Wind Farm Facebook Group


Of course renewables are a good idea and wind farms in the appropriate setting are a good idea but one has to look at both the instantiation of any idea and the motivations of those who are pushing for the wind farm. The consortium of landowning developers want to make money. It is as simple as that. I seem to recall from last time that they get around £25k per turbine per year, so it's pretty lucrative - enough to make a comfortable living without working. So while a couple of developers may make money from the wind farm, this has to be offset against the financial loss incurred by a greater number of local inhabitants. I know at least 4 of my neighbours whose livelihood comes from tourism and those businesses will be devastated. One in particular hosts shooting parties, their building is less than 1 km from the wind farm and will be permanently blighted by the noise.


I presume that my view goes without saying: building a wind farm immediately adjacent to an A-listed building like Balintore Castle is a blasphemy. Even the developer's report concludes that the effect of the wind turbines on the castle would be "negative" and high (P205). The report does appreciate the significance of the synergy between Balintore Castle and its setting (P162): "This baronial hunting lodge has been designed to take into account the wider landscape and there are open view towards the project". However, it completely fails to address the restoration in progress. "Currently the Castle is at present derelict and uninhabited" (P205). I think not!


There remains the mystery of why the wind conditions are now suitable. Apparently, the old data which showed the wind conditions were unsuitable has been "extrapolated" for the new location and shown to be suitable. However, some of the new turbines are less than 500 metres from the old. It takes neither my degree in physics, nor the fact that both my parents were meteorologists, to conclude that this extrapolation is scientifically dubious in the extreme.  


Wind farms are best where there is a continuous and regular wind (i.e. offshore), and I wish, in the energy debate, that practicality would rule instead of the current landscape of short-term (often subsidised) financial gain and political beauty contests. We all lose.

Balintore Castle is red dot (LB2) at top left. Turbines are black dots at centre.

Projected Despoiled View from Balintore Castle - QED

The Mystery of Old Balintore Castle

The former conservation officer for Angus did some marvellous research on Balintore Castle which came as a delightful surprise to me.

In the 1580's and 1590's an inspired and hardy soul called Timothy Pont walked the length and breadth of Scotland to produce the country's first atlas. His maps are characterised by their neatness, accuracy, attention to detail and unusually, miniature drawings of all major buildings clearly taken from life.

On Pont's Map 29 Middle Strathmore, now located at the National Library of Scotland, there is a small picture of a tower house labelled "Balintor". It is strangely reminiscent of the present Balintore Castle, with its tall central tower, and very close-by ....

Balintor on Timothy Pont's 16C Map

So clearly the current Victorian Balintore Castle was NOT the first one in the area. This begs the question, where is or was the old (presumably mediaeval) Balintore Castle? Is it perhaps hidden inside the current building? When the Jacobean-style Dunlop House (1830's) came on the market, I viewed the property and was especially delighted to be allowed down through a hole in the floor to the mediaeval vaulted cellars! :-)

Dunlop House

Anyhow, I suspect the mystery of the old Balintore Castle has recently been solved by an reknown architectural historian from Dundee. And the solution is ..... postponed until a later blog entry of course. :-)

Apologies again for the lack of blog entries. I spoke too soon in my last entry, the Internet went down again immediately afterwards for another 4 days. :-(

17 Visitors, the eBay Purchase from Hell, and the Return of the Internet!

My Internet has come back up after six-and-a-half days of outage. The words of wisdom from Orange technical support were "There's nothing we can do, if the service does not come back within 10 days, get back to us" !!!!!!!!!!!!!! It feels like I have been to hell and back many times over the last week. The problem was that by tweaking with the ADSL modem's settings, I could sometimes get Internet at 55 kbits - though not reliably. There was a lot of failed tweaking and a lot of wasted time.


Anyhow, to celebrate the InterNet coming back a brief blog entry for yesterday!


I had 17 visitors in total:

• 1 plumber
• 1 builder
• 6 members of a local family (including relatives on holiday from Holland)
• 7 Slovakian fruit pickets who arrived on 7 push bikes
• 2 lady police officers late at night

Only the builder and plumber were expected. I am teetering on the edge of having a working bathroom - it's getting quite exciting.

The police officers were somewhat alarming, but as soon as they mentioned Arbroath I had an inkling. I recently bought a TV from Arbroath off eBay - only the TV received had a much lower specification  than the TV advertised. And geeks like me know precisely what features we are going for and which models have these and which models do not! :-) I contacted the seller about the misrepresentation, suggesting some resolutions, and was immediately accused of lying about the misrepresentation; stealing her TV; not paying any money and threatened with the police! So this accounted for the visit. All I could do was tell the police that I had documentary evidence that everything the seller was saying was false, and indeed had sent this documentary evidence to the seller. I had already taken the mis-selling to the eBay resolution centre, to get an independent judgement this way.

Anyhow, although it was dark when the lady police officers arrived, they had mighty powerful torches so I could take them for a tour of the castle in the dark. :-)

So the castle does make one speculate on the nature of humanity. The visitors today were absolutely lovely - I only wish I had had some notice so I could have baked some scones or something. Indeed, I did precisely that later in the day out of consequent guilt! This contrasts totally with the "eBay purchase from hell" as just described - one never expects clicking the "BUY" button to result in a police visit. I will not pass any judgement on the individual concerned, but will report back on the outcome of the eBay resolution.

Castle Internet Down AGAIN !

Apologies again for the lack of any blog entries. The Internet has been down at the castle for three days and counting, since the afternoon of Saturday 23rd July. :-(

I get occasional windows in time when the Internet works and the speed then is 55 kbits/second. Yes, a dial-up modem would be faster. Orange technical support said "If the problem has not gone in 10 days, contact us back.". Clearly, 10 days without the Internet is considered a perfectly valid service by this ISP!

I had another call to technical support today - the chap finally admitted that there was nothing he could do, and he said that the problem should be gone in two days. I asked him how he could say this, when it had been going on for longer than this already, and that the previous Internet outage (with identical symptoms) was 10 days. No justification was supplied.

Anyhow, the technical support must be improving as the guessed-at time to fix is going down. :-) / :-(

Electric Chair Comes to UK

Yesterday morning, I popped a couple of slices of bread into the toaster for breakfast. Yes, my life really is that prosaic, but hang on in there for the denouement.

Next thing I knew, the power went down in the castle. This happened inevitably at the worst possible moment: while I was installing a new computer operating system. After a brief thought that it might be the fault of "Windows 7", well everything else is, I realised that the toaster (high current device) could be the cause. I rushed through to the kitchen. There was a terrible smell of burning, and the toast had popped up - rather make that warm bread. As the RCD (residual current device) in the fuse box had triggered I figured there was a short in the toaster and that probably meant a new toaster :-( I disconnected the toaster, and ate the warm bread. I would worry about the toaster later.

This morning I went to make breakfast again; decided I would not risk using the toaster again with my computer running; extracted an old small toaster from the loft, and proceeded to make toast. After breakfast, I decided I could not put off checking the failed toaster over any longer. I peered inside. There was a bit of bread stuck inside - I could remove that for a start. I stuck a knife in. Gosh that bread is below the shelves that lift the toast, and will be hard to extract. No problem, I can break the bread up into smaller bits. Gosh, that bread is very firm. Only, that was no piece of bread, it was a dead mouse totally entangled in all the metal wires inside the toaster!!!!!!

It was now apparent what the burning smell had been. The mouse had crawled inside the toaster to get the crumbs at the bottom. I had applied 240 volts to the mouse, and it had cross-circuited the mains. The burning smell was the electrocuted mouse - the burning smell had been so intense I hadn't merely toasted the mouse but "fried" it!

I have a terrible mouse problem at the castle. Nowadays, I am very careful about locking food away - in fact there is a whole blog entry pending about my battle with the mice. Anyhow, two days ago I asked my friend Andrew if I should be killing my mice. His reply was "yes" and for such a gentle soul that is quite something. The irony is that while I am too wimpy to kill my mice, I seem to be able to put them in the "electric chair".

At the moment, I can't even bring myself to dismantle the toaster and remove the dead mouse.

Range Archaeology

Today, I was clearing out the brick in-fill at the back of the old kitchen range, which was removed a few days ago - see First Kitchen Lum Reek in 50 Years! The intention is to open up this space to create an open fireplace i.e. to re-use the existing chimney. Re-use is a sound restoration principle.

Anyhow, as I was removing the brick rubble, I came across a "sooted surface" as an underlying layer in the archaeology. This is shown in the first photograph. The only explanation is that the range that was removed was NOT the original range in that position, and that the earlier range was somewhat deeper.

I decided to excavate to this level as shown in the second photograph. There were clearly three flues: a larger one in the centre, and two smaller ones at either side. In fact, the replacement range also had three flues in similar positions.

This discovery solves two mysteries:-

1. The brick in-full was oddly untidy when everything in the castle is neat, so we wondered if it was later. In fact, the actual original 1860 brick in-fill that has just been discovered is neat
2. The stove design always looked a bit Edwardian to me. So the evidence now suggests it is indeed later than 1860. I think the 1860 model would have been very heavy cast iron. Some of the panels of the replacement stove are quite thin, and have rusted through.

I suspect the inhabitants of the castle simply installed a new model of cooker at one stage, which was smaller, lighter and presumably more efficient.

The bricks behind the original flues, were I guess, intended to be heat resistant. In the top of the middle flue the bricks take their place in the stone wall. On the left and right and at the bottom of the central blue, half bricks are placed on their sides and stuck onto the wall to provide this heat-proof and air-tight surface. You can see the vertical dimension of the bricks in this orientation is slightly larger.

The result of all this archaeology is that a sooty smell now pervades the kitchen wing, and that I am as black as the ace of spaces! :-) A late night bath awaits. It is interesting how a smell created in the past emerges in the present!

I will be removing the brick in-fill for the original stove tomorrow too, but like any good archaeologist I am recording the historic layer for posterity. :-)

sooty surface in underlying layer behind lime mortar

the three 1860 flues excavated  i.e. three blackened brick columns

Carboniferous Tree Fern Assaults Baronial Pile

As more and more vegetation gets pulled off Balintore Castle in the process of restoration, the bits that do remain suddenly jump into hitherto unknown prominence. Gosh, I thought to myself, that fern growing directly under the kitchen window needs to be removed. I decided to remove this plant as a quick task, while my friend Andrew and I were taking turns at painting a high-up window leaning over the edge of some scaffolding. In fact, the somewhat exhausting position one had to adopt while painting, was reminiscent of  the contortion demanded whilst kissing the Blarney Stone.

Anyhow, it wasn't a quick weeding task at all! Like all jobs at the castle, the tendency is to totally underestimate their scale. I reckon this fern had been growing there for at least 50 years. After two hours of work, Andrew and I had got only half the fern removed. We had chopped it with an axe, used trowels and shovels - but the roots proved incredibly tenacious. We had first to clear away the leaves, then the earth mound the fern had created for itself through decades of self-fertilising.

In the end I bought myself a garden fork (the most appropriate tool that we did not have) and removed the final bit of root a couple of days later, after 30 minutes work. The last bit of roots I removed are shown in the photograph with the ladder for scale. This is only a third of  the entire root system, and thus the plant deserves its place in the "super-size-my-biology" seam of carboniferous fossils, along with foot-wide dragonflies!

Ferns hold water against the side of stonework, and this spalls the stone in the winter as well as washing away the mortar, so as much as I love the fractally bootylicious fern as a plant - it had to go. When I first saw the castle, vertical columns of ferns were growing up the sides of the building, in precisely the locations where the stolen downpipes should have been.  If I half-closed my eyes, the elevations of Balintore were the exotically-vegetated cliffs leading up to the plateau of Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Lost World". :-)