Moray

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.

As you can see Elgin Cathedral is a ruin, building started here in the 1200s but the Protestant Reformation in the 1560s was its demise, although there’s a lot more of it still standing than many other cathedrals, it’s well worth going to see, we were impressed.

It doesn’t look like it but you can get up to the very top of both towers although you have to be fairly fit as it’s a very long way to the top up very narrow spiral staircases, but it’s worth it and there are ‘landings’ which you can have a rest in and they have exhibits of lots of the stone carvings which had decorated the outside of the cathedral in its heyday. As you can see from the photos below you get a great view from the top.

You need a head for heights. The modern town is right next to the cathedral. The landscape is not fantastic it’s too flat for my liking but when you drive just a few miles out of Elgin the countryside becomes much more hilly and scenic.

But there’s a nice park looking to the north from the cathedral. We were there in April when the cherry trees were still blooming.

I’ll show you some of the carvings tomorrow.

Pining for the West

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Tag Archives: Moray

Balvenie Castle, by Dufftown, Moray, Scotland

Elgin Cathedral, Moray, Scotland