BALTERSAN · MDLXXXIV
The Baltersan Orchards Campaign
Adopt a heritage Scottish fruit tree, sponsor a square metre of wildflower border, or become a Founding Adopter for the immediate spring works. Every dedication takes root in a five-hundred-year story — the orchards Lady Egidia Blair kept, recorded in a 1574 charter, lost after the castle was abandoned in 1745, now being replanted at Baltersan in time for the next planting season.
Four ways to take part. Click any row below — you'll be taken to the Reservation form with that tier already chosen, the variety options laid out, and a single button to pay through PayPal.
ALL PRICES INCLUDE VAT · LICHTSOME HOOSE LTD IS VAT-REGISTERED · VAT INVOICES AVAILABLE ON REQUEST
Pick a tier, choose your variety from the available stock, and tell us in whose name the dedication is being made. The form passes your details to PayPal so the variety and dedication arrive with the payment — no follow-up email needed.
You are not buying land — Scottish law does not permit the registration of plots this small (and we would not want to sell them). You are adopting a heritage fruit tree (or sponsoring a square metre of wildflower border), enrolled in the Roll of the Orchards, and woven into the Fellowship of Baltersan in perpetuity.
Pick a heritage Scottish apple, pear or plum. Or, for the entry tier, a square metre of the wildflower understorey.
To a person, a family, a clan, a place of origin, a cause — any quiet act of remembrance you wish to make.
A vellum-print certificate, your tree's variety and Latin name, and a place in the Roll of the Orchards.
When the gates open, come find your tree. Sit on a bench beneath the boughs. Hear music drift from the tower.
Anyone contributing from £20 to the immediate spring works becomes a Founding Adopter: name in the founder's vault, invitation to the Planting Ceremony when the first trees go in, and the right to plant your own tree if you adopt later. The numbers below are working estimates of what gets the parcel planting-ready — fencing, scrub, soil, and the first 30 saplings; firm quotes are being commissioned.
Scottish weather and the natural planting cycle mean it will take at least a full year between adoption and the orchards being up to spec. Heavy ground works are largely impossible between November and March — frost, waterlogged soil, leafless surveys — and trees themselves go in only during narrow dormant-season windows (bare-root in late autumn, container-grown in early spring). After planting, a sapling needs a full growing season at minimum to establish. You are funding the patient work of an orchard, not the purchase of one.
Every Founding Adopter is named on the permanent Roll of the Orchards and welcomed in person at the Planting Ceremony.
Baltersan today — watercolour study
Lady Egidia Blair — known by her marriage as Lady Row of Baltersan — kept the original house on this ground in the early sixteenth century. Her surviving will of 1530 records her as a generous benefactress to the abbey at Crossraguel just down the road, and to her relatives, friends and neighbours. She died at her dwelling-house of Baltersan in that same year. The orchards she walked between had no grand certificate, no charter, just the ordinary fact of fruit trees in a courtyard, kept by hand.
Fifty years later, on 28 March 1574, the orchards finally made it onto paper. A Precept of Clare Constat records "the three merkland of Baltersan … with mansion and orchards" — and a modern transcription of that charter describes two large walled orchards, three gates, walls of stone capped with lime, two ponds, and a planting of apple, plum, cherry, wild plum and almond, with hawthorn, gooseberry, redcurrant, rose, plane, birch and ash around the edges. Joan Blaeu's 1654 atlas, after Pont, still showed the grounds planted with trees and fenced in a square. By the time the castle was abandoned in 1745, the orchards were already in decline. Today, no trace remains — but a carved oak panel, surviving from the interior, gives some sense of the craftsmanship of the place: a face among acanthus scrolls, signed in scallop-shells and worked by hand.
One detail of the surrounding ground deserves its own note. A short walk from the castle stands a hawthorn tree of the kind shown on old estate maps as "Cullean Thorn" — known in local memory as the Peden Thorn, after Alexander Peden (1626–1686), the Covenanter preacher who was said to have held secret conventicles beneath it during the Killing Time. Hawthorn was already on the 1574 charter as one of the orchard's boundary plantings; we are extending that line, with a hawthorn row dedicated in tribute to the preacher's thorn that still stands in the parish.
Alexander Peden (1626–1686), whose preaching beneath an Ayrshire thorn gave the tree its local name. The Custodian has made the project's foundational adoption a Peden Thorn hawthorn, dedicated in tribute to the preacher's open-air ministry.
Hawthorn in May bloom — the species of the Peden Thorn, planted as the first dedication of the Roll
We are putting the orchards back. Not as a reconstruction — that knowledge is largely lost — but as a continuation, using surviving heritage Scottish fruit varieties (Bloody Ploughman, White Melrose, Galloway Pippin, Tower of Glamis, Oslin) and the harder-to-find plums, cherries, wild plums and almonds the charter named. The fullest scholarly account is James Brown's 2000 paper, "Baltersan: a stately tower house in Ayrshire" — the same James Brown who safeguarded the ruin for thirty years before passing it on in 2024.
The first Planting Ceremony will be held when the ground is ready, on the same calendar day as the 1574 charter — a date set by the seasons, not the campaign. Founding Adopters will be invited in person. The Roll begins with whoever steps forward first. — from the Charter of the Baltersan Orchards
"Cullean Thorn" — the Peden Thorn — marked beside "Baltarsan" on an eighteenth-century estate map
This carved oak panel is one of the few interior fragments to have survived Baltersan's long abandonment. A face among acanthus scrolls, sketched in scallop-shells, worked by hand and showing it. Whoever sat under that face in the 1580s was held by the same traditions we hope the orchards, the music school and the slow restoration will carry forward — Scottish craft, kept alive by being practised again.
The catalogue of heritage varieties available for dedication. Each tree comes with at least 5 square metres of dedicated ground; each wildflower square is 1 square metre. The orchards extend to roughly 3,000 sqm of grounds, of which approximately 1,500 sqm are available for adoption; the remainder is kept for paths, communal planting and the structural restoration. The first dedication has been made — a Peden Thorn hawthorn, planted by the custodian as the project's foundational adoption — and every variety below remains open for further dedications, the Peden Thorn included.
Working with Scottish nurseries and the Scottish Heritage Apples network, the planting list will continue to grow. Some cultivars are limited to a handful of grafts per season; first dedications get first choice.
The first dedication is the Peden Thorn, made by the custodian. The Roll is open and waiting for its second name.
No — and we want to be straight with you about that. Under section 22 of the Land Registration etc. (Scotland) Act 2012, plots considered "of inconsiderable size or no practical utility" are classed as souvenir plots and cannot be entered in the Land Register. You will receive a Charter of Adoption and a perpetual dedication — a real, recorded place in the orchards — but no transfer of legal title. Anyone who claims to actually sell you a Scottish square metre with full title is, frankly, not telling you the truth.
For a tree adoption: a heritage Scottish fruit tree planted in your name, a brass plaque on a wooden stake at its foot, a Charter recording the dedication and the variety's history, your name in the Roll of the Orchards, and Fellowship of Baltersan membership. For a wildflower square: a sponsored square metre of border, planted with a seasonal mix, a Charter, and the same Roll and Fellowship. Higher tiers add benches, whole rows and event invitations.
No. The campaign is a sponsorship initiative of Lichtsome Hoose Ltd, the registered proprietor of the castle, and is not registered with the Office of the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR). Gift Aid is therefore not available, and Adoption Sums are not tax-deductible. We have made this choice deliberately, to keep governance simple and the project moving while we restore the building. If campaign volume grows materially we will revisit charity registration; we will write to all adopters if and when that happens.
Yes — Lichtsome Hoose Ltd is VAT-registered, and all advertised tier prices include VAT at the prevailing UK standard rate. The VAT element of each tier is: £12.50 on a Wildflower Square (£75 inclusive), £33.33 on a Heritage Tree (£200 inclusive), £250 on a Bench Bearer (£1,500 inclusive), and £833.33 on a Founder's Row (£5,000 inclusive). If you are yourself a VAT-registered business adopting at any tier and would like a proper VAT invoice (so you can reclaim the input VAT through your own returns), simply email support@baltersan.scot with your VAT registration number after payment and we will issue one within five working days.
You have a 14-day cooling-off period under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 from the date of your adoption — full refund, no questions asked. After that, adoptions are non-refundable but transferable: you may pass your dedication to another person at any time by writing to us.
Whatever feels true to you. Many adopters dedicate a tree in memory of someone they have lost; others choose a family line, clan or sept; some honour a place (a village, an island, a city of the diaspora); some dedicate a cause — Scottish stonemasonry, young musicians, the abbey at Crossraguel just down the road, the next generation of luthiers. Variety choice and dedication wording are always agreed with you.
Phase 1 work — fencing, scrub clearance, soil preparation and the first cuts of grass — has to be done before any tree can go in. The estimated cost is around £20,000 (firm quotes are being commissioned). Anyone who contributes £20 or more to the Spring Works receives Founding Adopter recognition: name in the founder's vault, an invitation to the Planting Ceremony when it happens, and the right to plant their own tree if they adopt later. The owner is on site cutting grass and walking the ground regularly through the spring; this is hands-on work, not a remote project.
The earliest secure record is a Precept of Clare Constat dated 28 March 1574, which describes the lands of Baltersan "with mansion and orchards" — fifty years after Lady Egidia Blair's death on the same ground. A modern transcription of that charter (cited on contemporary heritage sources) details two large walled orchards with three gates, lime-capped stone walls, two ponds, and a planting of apple, plum, cherry, wild plum and almond trees, with hawthorn, gooseberry, redcurrant, rose, plane, birch and ash. Joan Blaeu's 1654 atlas, drawing on Pont, still showed the grounds planted with trees and fenced in a square. The fullest modern synthesis is James Brown's 2000 peer-reviewed study, "Baltersan: a stately tower house in Ayrshire", which informed the campaign throughout. Where the modern transcription of the 1574 charter remains to be checked against the original, we say so.
The 1574 charter named apple, plum, cherry, wild plum and almond. We have built the planting plan around all five categories, using surviving Scottish heritage cultivars where they exist and the closest historically-defensible alternatives where they do not. Apples: Bloody Ploughman, White Melrose, Galloway Pippin, Stirling Castle, Hawthornden, Coul Blush, Oslin (Arbroath Pippin), Lady of the Lake, Cambusnethan Pippin, Beauty of Moray, Port Allan Russet, East Lothian Pippin, Scotch Bridget. Pears: Tower of Glamis among others. Plums: Damson, Mussel Plum, Yellow Egg. Cherries: Morello, Mazzard (Scottish gean), May Duke. Wild plums: Bullace, Blackthorn (sloe). Almonds: common almond — yes, in Ayrshire; the 1574 charter is genuinely surprising on this point. Some varieties are limited per season due to grafting availability.
The first Planting Ceremony will be held on the same calendar day as the 1574 charter, in the first spring after the parcel is fenced and the ground is prepared. We are deliberately not announcing a fixed date until the Phase 1 works are firmly funded and on schedule — a missed ceremony would be worse than a generous timeline. Founding Adopters and Heritage Tree adopters at the time will be invited in person.
Honestly, slowly — and we want to be transparent about that before you give. Scottish weather restricts ground works to roughly April–October each year; between November and March, frost, sodden soil and bare deciduous canopies make most outdoor work impossible. Planting itself happens only in narrow seasonal windows: bare-root saplings go in during the dormant season (typically November), container-grown trees in early spring (March–April). After planting, a young tree needs at least one full growing season to put down roots and look like anything more than a stake in the ground. Realistically, expect a minimum of twelve months between your adoption and a recognisable young orchard, and three to five years before the trees are properly mature. Wildflower squares establish faster — typically by the second summer. We will keep adopters updated through the year with photographs and progress notes; the orchard is being grown, not delivered.
An old estate map shows a tree marked "Cullean Thorn" beside "Baltarsan" — known in local memory as the Peden Thorn, after Alexander Peden (1626–1686), the Covenanter preacher who is said to have held secret outdoor conventicles beneath it during the Killing Time. The 1574 charter already lists hawthorn among the orchard's boundary plantings, so we are extending an existing line. The first Peden Thorn dedication has been made by the custodian as the project's foundational adoption — it is the first name on the Roll. The variety remains available for further dedications; any number of adopters can choose a Peden Thorn hawthorn, and they will be planted together as a small grove in the spirit of the preacher's open-sky ministry. The only real ceiling is the total adoptable ground (see the question below).
The Baltersan grounds extend to roughly 3,000 square metres. Of that, approximately 1,500 square metres are available for adoption — the remaining 1,500 sqm are kept for paths, communal planting, the courtyard, and the structural restoration works. Each Heritage Tree adoption is allocated at least 5 sqm of dedicated ground; each Wildflower square is 1 sqm; a Bench Bearer's setting is approximately 10 sqm; a Founder's Row of seven trees is approximately 50 sqm. The Roll will close on each tier when the corresponding capacity is full — at which point we will publish what was achieved. Should we acquire additional land near the Castle in the future, the scheme may expand and the Roll may reopen for new dedications; no such expansion is currently planned, however, and adopters should not contribute on the assumption that further capacity will be unlocked.
Lichtsome Hoose Ltd, as Custodian, contractually commits to maintain the Roll of the Orchards and the principal physical features of the Orchards for a minimum of twenty (20) years from the date of your dedication — the "Guaranteed Period" defined in clause 5 of the Adoption Agreement. Beyond that point, we will use our reasonable endeavours to continue maintenance for as long as the Castle is held by Lichtsome Hoose Ltd or any successor body, but as a private limited company we cannot promise an indefinite contractual obligation. The longer-term mechanism we are exploring with our solicitors is a conservation burden registered against the Castle title under the Title Conditions (Scotland) Act 2003 — which, once registered, would bind successive owners of the Castle to maintain the Orchards beyond the 20-year contractual minimum. We will write to all adopters if and when such a burden is in place.
No. Genuine Scottish baronies and feudal titles are governed by the Court of the Lord Lyon and cannot be conferred through an adoption scheme. We will never describe an adoption as a title. The dedication is something gentler and, we think, more meaningful — a permanent place in the story of a real castle's revival.
The Roll is open and growing. New dedications are always welcome — clan, family, in memoriam, place, cause. If you would like a heritage variety we have not yet listed, write to us; we work continuously with Scottish nurseries and the Scottish Heritage Apples network to expand the planting plan.
Funds are ring-fenced for two purposes: the stabilisation and restoration of the Category A-listed Baltersan tower-house under the supervision of accredited Scottish heritage stonemasons, and the planting, care and ongoing stewardship of the Baltersan Orchards. Annual statements will be issued to all adopters.
Yes — once the grounds are safe to open. Restoration of a Category A-listed structure proceeds in stages and visitor access is governed by the schedule agreed with Historic Environment Scotland and South Ayrshire Council. We will issue invitations to adopters as each phase opens, and the Planting Ceremony will be the first event for tree adopters.
Leave us your email. We'll send the full prospectus, the variety list, the adoption agreement, and the moment the gates open for the first wave of plantings.
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