I found another thumbnail sketch of the "Newby Castle Ruins" on an old map. It took me about 10 hours to restore the map, but I enjoyed it. I compared some of the other building thumbnail sketches to contemporary drawings and was quite pleased to see that the cartographers made a decent effort to get the basic outlines of the castles, churches, inns, manses, and other buildings correct.
Newbie Castle was in ruins, but it is interesting to see that it was apparently more than just a basic fortified tower. There appears to have been some size to it as is verified by the 1634 inventory which lists the various rooms and their contents. It was large enough and important enough to have had a moat surrounding it with a drawbridge. In addition we know from the documents of the time that King James VI considered Newbie Castle to be the only castle in the immediate area that was large enough to accommodate his retinue of kin and their servants when they travelled.
Ian McClumpha, archivist for Lord Annandale, mentioned to me that Newbie Castle had an outstanding deer park which is the reason that the King liked to visit Newbie Castle - deer hunting! This is also one of the reasons for the Johnston of Newbie laird losing Newbie Castle. He went bankrupt. It cost an arm and a leg to house and feed the King and his retinue. Many landowners upon hearing that the King was touring the countryside actually would leave the country "on vacation" or "for medical treatment" so as not to have to spend enormous amounts of money hosting the King et al. It was one of these deer hunts that did the laird in.
The Johnston of Newbie lairds were required to keep an armed force of 200 spearmen at the ready at all times and at their own expense. This was a very costly proposition. The King did this in order to keep them in check. He feared the power of our Clan Johnston along the border. On the other hand, he could not afford to have our family disappear in a cloud of dust as we were an important and vital part of protecting the West March against English raiders and invading English armies. He is known to have "slipped money on the QT" to keep the Johnston of Newbie laird financially solvent and in place. It was a precarious position for the laird to be in. On one deer hunt at Newbie Castle the King made a rather disturbing discovery. His spies reported that the armed spearmen felt that their loyalty was to the laird first, ahead of loyalty to the King. That did it. The King extended his hunt, at the laird's expense...and he never recovered financially. There were also a number of loans that the laird's family had made to others. Most of these loans went unpaid. It was a double whammy. One has to wonder if the King had some influence on the loans not being repaid.
We need to keep in mind that these border fortalices, lesser castles, were built to be residential strongholds. They needed to withstand attacks from England on an almost weekly to monthly basis in the time period of ca, 1300-1600. This area of Scotland was a hotbed of almost continuous battles. I recall reading an excerpt from a book written in the 1500s. The author observed that the women in the area had an almost constant look of concern upon their faces, never knowing if their men would come home at the end of the day. This is quite a telling observation.