Aberdour Castle, Fife

Posted on 10 December 2023 by Katrina

It was back in October when we visited nearby Aberdour Castle for the second time, it must have been about 15 years since we first went there. It’s just a ruin now but there are parts of it which are quite habitable – well almost. If you want to enlarge the photos click on them.

The gardens are well maintained now and they even have an orchard.

The photo below was taken from the Doocot (Dovecote)

But there are habitable rooms in the castle as you can see below. With a few rugs, tapestries and curtains I could quite happily move in!

There is a rare painted ceiling

And a large hall which is actually bigger than these photos make it look.

I’m sure you can hire this place for a wedding, if you are so inclined.

James Douglas, the 4th Earl of Morton acquired this castle in 1564. He loved gardens and his travelling in Europe and particularly Italy had influenced him when he set about planning his garden. Sadly it doesn’t take long for gardens to disappear once a property falls into disuse.

Kildrummy Castle, Aberdeenshire

Posted on 20 October 2022 by Katrina

We had to have two goes at visiting Kildrummy Castle when we were in Aberdeenshire for a few days in August. The first time we tried to go there it was shut, normally as it’s a ruin you would have been able just to wander around it after hours, but for some reason we weren’t allowed to do that at this castle. It dates from the 1200s so I suppose it can be forgiven for being a ruin.

The castle was originally the seat of the Earl of Mar but over the years it has been under siege several times and so has changed hands, it’s thought that the English King Edward I took it over at some point.

You can’t really tell from what is left of the building but the design of it was similar to French castles, as so many Scottish castles are, they looked to France and Italy for inspiration and obviously didn’t want to be like English castles.

Certainly Kildrummy was inhabited by some of the Bruce family, including Robert’s brother and sister, but its downfall came much later than that at 1716 after the failure of the Jacobite ‘rebellion’ the previous year. Obviously the then owners backed the wrong side!

The information boards give you some idea of how the place would have looked in its heyday. The one below shows the Snow Tower which was the castle keep, one of the tallest buildings of its time.

As you can see from the photo of a model below, it was quite elegant in its day. Even although it’s a ruin it’s still worth seeing.

Edzell Castle, near Brechin, Angus, Scotland

Posted on 3 September 2021 by Katrina

On Monday we visited Edzell Castle which is near Brechin in Angus. It’s the first time we had visited anywhere like that since Covid because they’ve all been shut until recently – and now you have to book a time slot for your visit, so you have to think ahead which isn’t something we normally do much of nowadays. Since retiring we prefer to see what the weather is like and what we feel like and then just visit places on the spur of the moment. In other words, we’re not terribly well organised! We had been to the garden 30 odd years ago, before digital cameras.

The castle was built by the Lindsay family in the 1500s but prior to that they had built a motte and bailey nearby. From the photo below you can see it’s now just a mound in the landscape. It is now owned by Historic Scotland.

Back to Edzell, the doorway below leads into a courtyard and from there you can see the remains of the kitchen and you can get upstairs via a modern wooden staircase.

But there’s also an ancient staircase, just mind your ‘heid’ as the lintels are very low!

The photo of the archway below is all that remains of the collapsed oven, it was quite a size.

In the photo below you can just catch a glimpse of the garden which is well known for it’s unusual and beautiful design, but I’ll blog about that tomorrow.

Caerlaverock Castle, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland

Posted on 14 July 2018 by Katrina

We visited Caerlaverock Castle when we were in Dumfries and Galloway in May. It’s a great castle ruin with a very unusual shape, triangular which I suppose is a good shape for defensive reasons. It also has a proper moat. I know that if I had lived in a castle in those days I would have wanted a moat so that I didn’t have to worry about people scaling the walls during the night. If your drawbridge was up – it was safe to go to sleep!

Building work started on this castle in the 1260s and it was finished in the 1270s, but this is the ‘new’ castle as the old one just 200 yards away was abandoned because it began to sink. It was built in 1220 and if you go you should make time to visit what is left of it, just the foundations really, but it’s still interesting.

Below is a photo of part of the castle from the inside.

As Caerlaverock is so close to the border with England it was often attacked and besieged. With the English king Edward 1 (Hammer of the Scots) attacking the castle in 1300 with over 3,000 men and using siege engines serious damage must have been done to the walls at that time. The castle changed hand many times over the years between Scotland and England. Most of the castle that can be seen today dates from the 1300s and 1400s.
The countryside around that area is quite pretty, in the photo below you can see that there must have been buildings where there is now grass. That will be even more obvious now that we’ve had such a long spell of hot dry weather.

I think this is one of my favourite ruined castles. Just imagine how atmospheric it would as darkness falls on a moonlit night, or even in the gloaming (twilight).

You can see more images of Caerlaverock Castle here.

Pining for the West

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Tag Archives: medieval castle

Aberdour Castle, Fife

Kildrummy Castle, Aberdeenshire

Edzell Castle, near Brechin, Angus, Scotland

Caerlaverock Castle, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland