Newark Castle, in the little town of St. Monance, consists of a few fragments of an early thick wall of enceinte, and a round tower and domestic apartments built at a much later date. It stands on a rocky cliff overlooking the Firth of Forth. It once belonged to the famous soldier, David Leslie, renowned in the civil wars of the seventeenth century, who built much of what now stands.

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Hi: Enjoyed your description of the delights of the East Neuk enormously. However, the castle of St Monance/Newark (merely being the term applied to an addition -- you find a number of them about Scotland and England -- at least five) was not built by David Leslie: it was there for centuries before his appearance. The Sandilands family had it between 1545 and 1649; the Thomas Scott/Agnes Moncreiffe before that. I'm still working on how it came into their hands. Alan Durward was there in the 13th century with an earlier version of the castle. He also built an earlier chapel to St Monan which was replaced/rebuilt by Dishington in the 14th century. Durward (Door Keeper, an inherited title/position, to the king) was son-in-law of Alexander II (wife, Marjory, was AII's illegitimate daughter)and Alexander III reputedly spent part of his childhood at Durward's castle, who was one of the regents during that unhappy period. Leslie did, however, add those bizarre Dutch gables to it. If you look up at the remaining gable, you can see the more traditional crow's step gabling that was there before his time. During the archaeological dig done in the Fall of 2002, evidence of a massive ditch, surrounding the castle was found, along with shot holes approximately 12 feet below the current ground level. Unfortunately, Historic Scotland insisted that the dig had be filled back in so that isn't currently evident. Hopefully, in the not-too-distant future, a restoration will take place.
Provied by Nola Crewe

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