Craigievar Castle

Craigievar looks like the idea of a Scottish castle distilled to its essence: a tall, narrow tower, plain in its lower storeys, that bursts at the top into a crown of corbelled turrets, conical roofs, balustrades and gables. Its pink harling, the lime render that coats the walls, gives it a softness no stone keep can match, and set against the green hills of Aberdeenshire it has the air of an illustration rather than a fortress. It is one of the purest surviving examples of the Scottish Baronial tower house, seven storeys high and almost untouched since the seventeenth century.

The tower was begun by the Mortimer family, who ran out of money before it was finished. In 1610 the unfinished house was bought by William Forbes, an Aberdeen merchant who had grown rich trading with the Baltic ports and was known as "Danzig Willie". He completed it around 1626, and his decisions shaped everything that makes the castle remarkable. At the base it is a defensible tower; at the top it is pure display, an announcement of wealth by a man who had made his money in trade rather than war.

Inside, Forbes paid for some of the finest plasterwork ceilings in Scotland, made by plasterers who had also worked at Glamis and Kellie. The ceilings are dense with ribs, pendants, heraldry, cherubs and medallion portraits, including figures of the Nine Worthies, and the Great Hall carries the royal Stuart arms above its fireplace. Because the Forbes family lived here for more than three centuries and the house passed to the National Trust for Scotland in 1963 with its contents, the rooms keep their panelling, portraits and furniture, and the upper floors have never been wired for electricity. The pink colour, too, is a matter of careful restoration: the harling was renewed in traditional lime in the late 2000s to match the tone of the granite dressings. A story repeated by the Trust holds that Craigievar was among the inspirations for Disney's Cinderella Castle.

Getting there

Craigievar stands in the countryside of Aberdeenshire, about 10 km (6 miles) south of the village of Alford and roughly 38 km west of Aberdeen. Aberdeen International Airport (ABZ) is about 32 km away. The castle is best reached by car.