We were out and about in the far north-east of Scotland for a few days a couple of weeks ago, and one of the many places that we squeezed into those three nights away was a visit to Balvenie Castle near Dufftown. It’s in the middle of nowhere up a quite scary steep and very narrow road, and when we reached the castle it was shut! It doesn’t open on Monday.

Anyway, we were undaunted as we were able to step over the fence easily to have a closer look, we kept well away from the back as per instructions, and as we’re Historic Scotland members we weren’t doing them out of any money.

We were only there for a few minutes.

I took the photo below through the gate, as you can see it has a nice barrel vaulted roof.

Balvenie Castle was owned by a few prominent Scottish families in the past, including the notorious Black Douglases from 1362 to 1455. It’s a very scenic ruin, unfortunately the photo that I took of the farmland nearby came out too fuzzy to use. As ever, click on the photos if you want to see them enlarged.

I’ve just realised that this castle is actually owned by an absent American from Atlanta, Georgia! It is just managed by Historic Environment Scotland.

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