Hidden Scotland
Sign in

Castles
in the Cairngorms.

It’s 20:56 in the Cairngorms.
Cairngorms

Balmoral, Redcoats and an island keep.

The castles of the Cairngorms tell three very different stories. On a wide bend of the Dee stands the granite home Queen Victoria and Prince Albert built in the 1850s, where the grounds, gardens and ballroom open when the family is away. At the head of Strathdon, a white tower house became a Redcoat barracks after Culloden, ringed by a wall drawn out into the points of a star. In the Rothiemurchus pines, a ruined tower stands on its island in Loch an Eilein, seen from the shore path. Check before you travel, as the royal grounds open only for part of the year.

Loch an Eilein Castle→
Corgarff Castle→
Balmoral Castle→
Did you know18 hours ago

A zigzag causeway is said to run under the water to the castle in Loch an Eilein, but nobody has found it.

Legend has it that a zigzag causeway under the water once linked the island castle in Loch an Eilein to the shore. No evidence of it has ever been found.

See Loch an Eilein Castle · Cairngorms
Castle of the day16 hours ago

Balmoral Castle.

The royal family's Highland home on the Dee, bought by Prince Albert in 1852, whose grounds, gardens and ballroom open to visitors in spring, early summer and autumn.

Read about it
From the magazine14 hours agoThe printed copy of Issue 04Issue 04Spring / Summer 2022

Corgarff Castle, a lone tower house in the Cairngorms in Aberdeenshire, began as a private home and later became an army base sent to find Jacobite supporters and whisky smugglers.

The medieval tower stands dramatically alone in the Cairngorms National Park, behind a whitewashed perimeter wall drawn out into the shape of a star. Its story is a layered one. It was built as a private residence, and only later did the army move in, tasked with finding supporters of the Jacobite cause and whisky contrabandists, the smugglers who traded whisky outside the law. It is not the only castle in Aberdeenshire to have changed roles over the years. Braemar Castle, whose battlements the Earl of Mar built in 1628, has spent time as everything from a garrison to a family home.

See Corgarff Castle · Aberdeenshire
Did you know12 hours ago

The capercaillie, the biggest of all grouse, died out in Scotland in 1785 and was brought back at Taymouth Castle in Perthshire in 1837.

A male can weigh up to 4 kilograms, and its Gaelic name, capull-choille, means horse of the woods, after the drum roll in its display song. It was Lord Breadalbane who reintroduced it, and every capercaillie in Scotland today comes from Swedish stock. Sadly the bird is in trouble again: a survey in 2021 and 2022 estimated just 532 left, the lowest since records began, and the RSPB warns it could die out for a second time. It breeds in the native pinewoods, and visitors are asked not to go looking for it, because it is easily disturbed.

Read about it
From our guide10 hours ago

Loch an Eilein Castle.

The ruined tower on its island in Loch an Eilein probably dates from the late fourteenth century, and it is thought to be the work of the Wolf of Badenoch, the notorious Alexander Stewart. It was a refuge from the war bands who came down the Thieves' Road to raid Strathspey. In 1690 Jacobites fleeing the Battle of Cromdale attacked it, and the laird's wife, Grizel Mor, is said to have cast musket balls for its defenders. You see it from the shore, framed by pines, and it looks its best in autumn when the trees round it turn gold.

See the place
Did you know8 hours ago

The castle on the island in Loch an Eilein, near Aviemore, was probably a hunting lodge of the Wolf of Badenoch.

Alexander Stuart, a son of King Robert, is remembered as the notorious Wolf of Badenoch. In the 1380s he probably built a sturdy tower house at the north end of the island, with walls 1.8 metres thick. Defeated Jacobites besieged it in 1690. After Culloden, Jean Gordon, widow of the fifth laird, sheltered fugitives there, and later lairds used the ruin to protect nesting ospreys.

See Loch an Eilein Castle · Cairngorms
Did you know4 hours ago

Loch an Eilein, in the Cairngorms, was voted Britain's Favourite Picnic Spot.

The poll was run by Warburtons for National Bread Week. The loch, in the Rothiemurchus forest near Aviemore, has a ruined castle on its island.

See Loch an Eilein · Cairngorms
From the magazine2 hours agoThe printed copy of Issue 06Issue 06Spring / Summer 2023

Back in 1792, the usually strait-laced writers of the Statistical Account of Scotland rhapsodised about Loch an Eilein, near Aviemore, and its five remarkable echoes.

They told their readers that 'the loch… exhibits a scene most picturesque and romantic', and that the hills around it formed the echoes. The name means 'Loch of the Island', and the crumbled remains of a 600-year-old castle stand lonely on the small green island at its heart. The loch is ringed by the native Scots pines of the Rothiemurchus Estate, which long ago formed part of the great Caledonian Forest, and capercaillies, crested tits, ospreys and red squirrels all live among them. A relatively simple two-hour circuit on good footpaths takes you all the way round the shore.

See Loch an Eilein · Cairngorms
From our guide56 minutes ago

Corgarff Castle.

At the head of Strathdon, where the road climbs towards the Lecht, a tall white tower stands alone in green pasture inside a star-shaped wall. Corgarff began as a family tower house. After Culloden in 1746 the government turned it into a barracks for Redcoats, who added the loopholed star wall. For nearly a century soldiers lived here, hunting Jacobites at first and later helping the excisemen chase whisky smugglers in the hills. Inside, the barrack rooms are set out as they were around 1750, with a room of illicit stills too.

See the place
Did you knowJust now

When Jacobites attacked the castle in Loch an Eilein, near Aviemore, the laird's wife made the musket balls.

The castle on its island was built in the late 1300s as a refuge from the war bands that raided Strathspey. In 1690 Jacobites from the Battle of Cromdale attacked it, when it held mostly women, children and older people. One account says the laird's wife, Grizel Mor, Big Grace, cast lead musket balls for the defenders.

See Loch an Eilein Castle · Cairngorms

You are up to date.

That is everything for today. Tomorrow's first posts go up in the morning. Or have the best of it in your inbox each morning in the Daily.