Kincardine, a quondam town in Fordoun parish, Kincardineshire, near the right bank of Ferdun Water, 4½ miles NW of Laurencekirk, and 2 NE of Fettercairn. Near it, on a wooded eminence 30 feet high, are remains of a royal palace, whose walls, at no point exceeding 8 et in height, consist of chisel-hewn but mostly hammer-dressed stones of a hard and durable sandstone. The ground plan may still be traced; and it seems to have measured 36 yards square, with an inner quadrangle, filled more or less with buildings. Some make this palace the scene of the murder of Kenneth III. in 994 (see Fenella); and it is known to have been a residence of William the Lyon (1166-1214), of Alexander iii. (1249-85), of Edward I. of England in 1296, and of Robert II. in 1383. In 1532 the fourth Earl Marischal obtained a charter for making the town of Kincardine; the principal and capital burgh of the county; ' but less than eighty years after the sheriff and his deputes petitioned for the removal of the courts to Stonehaven, Kincardine possessing neither tolbooth nor hostelry. At the same time its fair, St Catherine's, was transferred to Fettercairn, whither also its market cross (1670) was removed a century later; and now the memory of Kincardine is preserved only by the vestiges of its palace, by the graveyard of its ancient kirk of St Catherine, and by such names in its vicinity as the ' King's Park, " Chancellor's Park,' and ' King's Deer.'-Ord. Sur., sh. 66, 1871. See chap. v. of Andrew Jervise's Memorials of Angus and the Mearns (Edinb. 1861), and app. xvi. of his Land of the Lindsays (2d ed., Edinb., 1882).
Castleton, a farm, containing remains of an ancient royal palace, in Fordoun parish, Kincardineshire, 4 miles NW of Laurencekirk. The palace was the place where John Baliol, in 1296, resigned his crown to Edward I. of England, and probably was destroyed before the close of the wars of the succession. It stood on a small ridge, at an elevation of about 70 feet above adjoining levels; was surrounded by a morass, which lay undrained till the early part of the present century; and commanded a view of the finest part of the Howe of Mearns. It appears to have been of a quadrangular form, and to have possessed considerable military strength; but now is represented only by foundations or substructions. The ancient town of Kincardine, once the capital of the county, now represented by a small decayed village, stood adjacent to the palace.
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