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A heraldic panel over the door of Braikie Castle is dated 1581 and the castle dates from at least this date. It was built for Thomas Fraser of Kinnell the alleged son of the 4th Lord Lovat (as he does not appear in genealogies if true he is an illegitimate son) and is a good example of a fortified laird's house of this period. The date 1581 forms part of a marriage lintel that combines the armorial crests of the Frasers of Lovat with that of the Kinnaird family, also bearing the initials TF and CK. In 1602 Thomas is married to Jane Kinnaird rather than C. Kinnaird.
By the mid-17th century the castle passed to Patrick Gray and his family. From the Grays it then passed to the Ogilvie family. In 1742 it passed to the William Maule, Earl of Panmure.
The overall form is a four-storey and attic, L-plan house, with the spiral stair in the re-entrant angle. A tall chimney stands adjacent to the stair. In incorporates corbelled bartizans and crow-stepped gables, and is distinctively Scottish in concept. A hidden basement holds the wine cellar.
The castle appears in the magnum opus survey of Scottish castles by MacGibbon & Ross published in 1892, under the name of Brackie.
Around 1960 it lost its roof and remains roofless.
References:The Jan Hus Memorial stands at one end of Old Town Square. The huge monument depicts victorious Hussite warriors and Protestants who were forced into exile 200 years after Hus, and a young mother who symbolises national rebirth. The monument was so large that the sculptor designed and built his own villa and studio where the work could be carried out. It was unveiled in 1915 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of Jan Hus' martyrdom. The memorial was designed by Ladislav Šaloun and paid for solely by public donations.
Born in 1369, Hus became an influential religious thinker, philosopher, and reformer in Prague. He was a key predecessor to the Protestant movement of the sixteenth century. In his works he criticized religious moral decay of the Catholic Church. Accordingly, the Czech patriot Hus believed that mass should be given in the vernacular, or local language, rather than in Latin. He was inspired by the teachings of John Wycliffe.