On the Castles Trail
Aug. 29th, 2025 06:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustAfter Tuesday’s marathon drive, the next day we stayed local, and went of in search of farm shops. In the course of our stay in Aberdeenshire, we found several of these, but nothing that really delivered what we wanted.
We had great hopes of Barra Castle, but this turns out to be primarily a cafe / ice cream parlour, with a couple of shelves of shop. You can’t see the castle, either, which is private: not only no visits, but no visibility, which I found annoying, since it is very prominent in their branding. On the plus side, their haloumi and strawberry salad was wonderful, and I assume those were their own berries.
Thwarted of Barra Castle, we were teased by road signs indicating a ’Castles Trail’ about which no information was available on the spot. Visit Aberdeenshire claims that the county "has been home to" 263 castles, which is impressive but daunting (and anyway, how many of them are there now?). Later, back home with internet, I found this leaflet, which was more helpful: we were aware of many of the castles included, but could have done with a handy sequence in which to visit them. As it was...
we doubled back on ourselves and went to Tolquhon Castle, which was a joy:
A miniature Renaissance palace arranged around a courtyard, with swallow-infested turrets, and a library.
There were many, many other castles which we could have visted: D. made more effort, and returned at the end of each day's trip to tell us what we had missed. But we were happy to have chosen Crathes Castle as our third outing. It's the perfect sixteenth century tower house:
Actually there's another wing hiding behind this block, but this is what you get to visit. I found it, unexpectedly, smaller on the inside. There's one small (tight, steep) spiral staircase just going up, and another even smaller going down, and they meet at the top in a gallery which would be massive, but still livable in a domestic building. At each level you visit two rooms, one in each direction; and the most spectacular of these have painted ceilings, which have been extensively restored, but are still a delight. On the way up, we had the Nine Worthies:
The photo that came out best is Alexander the Great, but I also liked King Arthur and Charlemagne (well, of course I did). The corresponding room on the way down illustrates the Nine Muses, with pictures of musicians.
It was too hot for more than a gentle stroll in the gardens: the yew hedges are impressive.
We had great hopes of Barra Castle, but this turns out to be primarily a cafe / ice cream parlour, with a couple of shelves of shop. You can’t see the castle, either, which is private: not only no visits, but no visibility, which I found annoying, since it is very prominent in their branding. On the plus side, their haloumi and strawberry salad was wonderful, and I assume those were their own berries.
Thwarted of Barra Castle, we were teased by road signs indicating a ’Castles Trail’ about which no information was available on the spot. Visit Aberdeenshire claims that the county "has been home to" 263 castles, which is impressive but daunting (and anyway, how many of them are there now?). Later, back home with internet, I found this leaflet, which was more helpful: we were aware of many of the castles included, but could have done with a handy sequence in which to visit them. As it was...
we doubled back on ourselves and went to Tolquhon Castle, which was a joy:
A miniature Renaissance palace arranged around a courtyard, with swallow-infested turrets, and a library.
There were many, many other castles which we could have visted: D. made more effort, and returned at the end of each day's trip to tell us what we had missed. But we were happy to have chosen Crathes Castle as our third outing. It's the perfect sixteenth century tower house:
Actually there's another wing hiding behind this block, but this is what you get to visit. I found it, unexpectedly, smaller on the inside. There's one small (tight, steep) spiral staircase just going up, and another even smaller going down, and they meet at the top in a gallery which would be massive, but still livable in a domestic building. At each level you visit two rooms, one in each direction; and the most spectacular of these have painted ceilings, which have been extensively restored, but are still a delight. On the way up, we had the Nine Worthies:
The photo that came out best is Alexander the Great, but I also liked King Arthur and Charlemagne (well, of course I did). The corresponding room on the way down illustrates the Nine Muses, with pictures of musicians.
It was too hot for more than a gentle stroll in the gardens: the yew hedges are impressive.
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Date: 2025-08-29 05:53 pm (UTC)And one in the middle, just for show?