A short distance to the north of Meigle, where the Kirriemuir road crosses the Dean Water, are the remains of a Roman fort and marching camp dating from circa 85 AD. 

The fort and the camp are part of a line of such settlements established by the Romans to the south of the Highland edge during the first century AD. 

Roman occupation is likely to have been short-lived, as the fort had been abandoned by AD 90, when the Twentieth Legion was withdrawn.  

Although there is little evidence to see above ground, traces of the fort overlooking the confluence of the Dean Water and the River Isla can be seen in the form of cropmarks in this ariel photo. 

A useful source for more detailed archeological information about this site and others in Tayside is the Tayside and Fife Archeological Committee, which produces annual journals of articles, including this one: Cardean: the changing face of a Flavian fort in Scotland by Birgitta Hoffmann. 

A bronze statuette of Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, intelligence, and creative skill, was excavated from the Cardean Roman fort. The bust shows Minerva, from shoulders up, wearing a helmet with an eagle-headed crest and a breastplate depicting a face. The figure is 85mm high and 55mm wide and can be seen in the Meffan museum in Forfar.

Before Cardean House existed, when the settlement now known as Cardean was called Potento, the area was owned by the Lyons of Glamis, the Earls of Strathmore. 

Records suggest that the Cardean and Potento Estate was sold to Patrick Murray, 5th Baron Lord Elibank in 1767 and passed to his illegitimate son, Patrick Murray of Simprim on the Baron's death in 1778. The estate included Potento House, which was described in the Statistical Account of 1837 as being "a moderate sized house".

Patrick Murray of Simprim does not appear to have taken much interest in the estate until after 1841, when his elder daughter, Susan, married Captain (later Admiral) Popham. Patrick Murray built Cardean House to be the couple's marital home at Potento, though he had renamed it as Cardean. He also renamed Easter Cardean to become Simprim, after his birthplace in Berwickshire. The new Cardean House incorporated the old Potento House, but it included much new build, including a wing which had been built at his house at Arthurstone, but was dismantled and reconstructed at Cardean.

When Patrick Murray died in 1855 the property passed to his elder daughter, Susan, but, tragically in 1866, she died of smoke inhalation at Cardean House when her bandages accidentally caught fire from a spark from the open fire. Admiral Popham built a mausoleum at Cardean to her memory, which was described as having been a substantial building.

On Admiral Popham's death in 1878, the property passed to Susan Ann (nee Talbot) Ives, the daughter of Patrick Murray's younger daughter, Maria Margaretta, Baroness Talbot of Malahide. As she had no connections to the area the estate was put up for sale and it was bought by James Cox, the elder partner in Cox Brothers, the leading Dundee jute manufacturers whose empire included the massive Camperdown Works in Lochee.

James Cox died in 1885 and five years later, his son, Edward Cox, moved from Lyndhurst in Dundee to Cardean, to which he added a new wing in 1896. Edward died at Cardean in 1913. The Cardean Estate remained with the Cox family until 1951, when it was bought, along with the adjoining Drumkilbo Estate, by Lord Elphinstone, brother-in-law of the late Queen. However, Cardean House was surplus to requirements and was demolished just two years later.

The site of Cardean House is slowly returning to nature where there is usually a fine display of snowdrops to signal the very beginnings of springtime, but traces of the old building do still remain on the site, including parts of the house's mosaic floor tiling.