Aberdour Castle – a Painted Ceiling and a Terraced Garden
A few hours.
The route
Aberdour Castle, on the Fife shore of the Forth, may be the oldest standing stone castle in Scotland, begun as a hall-house in the 1100s and added to for five hundred years.
It was the Renaissance home of the Regent Morton, and his terraced garden still falls away below the walls to a beehive-shaped doocot. Lunch is a short walk away at the Aberdour Hotel, an old coaching inn on the High Street.
Before you go
Book accommodation nearby
If you are staying over: here are ours nearest where the day starts and ends.
Book lunch at The Aberdour Hotel
Book a table at The Aberdour Hotel on 01383 860325 for about 12.30pm; from October to March the castle is shut on Thursdays and Fridays, so the day works on the other five.
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The day
Aberdour
Five hundred years of a castle in one set of walls, a painted ceiling and a terraced garden, then lunch in the village.
About three hours
Aberdour Castle and Gardens
An attraction
Park in the castle's own car park. The oldest part is a plain hall-house of the 1100s, and three families, the Mortimers, the Randolphs and the Douglases, built on to it over five centuries, so you can read the castle's story wall by wall. One room keeps its painted ceiling of the 1600s. Below the walls, the Regent Morton's terraced garden steps down to a round doocot, with an orchard beside it. From April to September it opens every day, 10am to 4.30pm; from October to March it opens every day but Thursday and Friday, 10am to 4pm, closing from 12.30pm to 1.30pm for lunch. There is an entry charge. The ruined ranges are open to the sky and some rooms are up stone stairs. Allow an hour and a half.
About 5 min on foot
The Aberdour Hotel
Lunch
Lunch is at the Aberdour Hotel on the High Street, a few minutes' walk west of the castle. It was a 17th-century coaching inn and is now a family-run hotel with a bar and a restaurant, which serves food every day from 11am to 8.30pm, with a children's menu. The hotel says it's dog friendly. Book a table on 01383 860325, especially at the weekend. Then walk back to the car at the castle.
If it rains
Much of the castle is roofless, but some rooms are under a roof, among them the one with the painted ceiling; in rain see those, keep the garden short and let lunch run long.
