Scottish Country Dancing Dictionary

Ashintully Castle

Scottish Country Dance Instruction

Ashintully Castle (S8x32) 3C (4C set) Lewis N Derrick 1988

1-8 The 1st, 2nd and 3rd couples dance six hands round and back
9-12 Pulling back left shoulders to begin, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd couples cast into a half chase anticlockwise round the set, ending on opposite sides in the order 321
13-16 The 3rd, 2nd and 1st couples set and cross over giving right hands
17-20 The 3rd, 2nd and 1st couples set and cross over giving right hands
21-24 Pulling back right shoulders to begin, the 3rd, 2nd and 1st couples cast into a half chase clockwise round the set, ending on own sides in the order 123
25-28 Giving both hands, the 1st and 2nd couples turn partners twice round ending on the first-corner diagonal with the 1st woman and 2nd man back to back
29-32 The 1st and 2nd couples dance a half poussette to change places

Repeat having passed a couple

(Dance crib compiled by the deviser, Lewis N Derrick 2020)


Dance Information

Ashintully Castle is near Blairgowrie, Perthshire.

Suggested tune: Donald Blue.

Devised 1988, revised 2020, first published electronically 2020.

Copyright 1988, 2020 Lewis N. Derrick.

(Dance information from The McGhie Scottish Country Dance Sheets #40, reproduced here with the kind permission of the deviser, Lewis N Derrick)


Ashintully Castle, located near Kirkmichael, north of Blairgowrie, in the county of Perthshire Scotland, was built in 1583 as a fortified tower house by the Spalding family; the Feudal Barons of Ashintully. The Spalding Barons were chiefs of the Spalding Clan and followers of the Duke of Atholl, the Chief of the Murray Clan. The Spaldings of Ashintully and their cadet branches were Jacobites, or followers of the House of Stuart.

In 1597 the Earl of Atholl and his followers attacked Andrew Spalding at Ashintully, bringing great guns, hagbuts, and pistols and raising fire at the house.

The name Ashintully is an anglicised spelling of the Gaelic Eas an Tulaich and means "cascade (or waterfall) of the hillock". The castle is reached from the B950 road to the Northeast of Kirkmichael. In the mid 19th century it was occupied by R J R Ayton.

Ashintully Castle from the front.
Ashintully Castle, 1991


Published in The McGhie Scottish Country Dance Sheets, Collection 4, reproduced here with the kind permission of the deviser, Lewis N Derrick.
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Text from this original Ashintully Castle article on Wikisource.
Image copyright (cropped) Elliott Simpson under this Creative Commons Licence 2.0.

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