Craigievar Castle

Stand on the lawn for a moment and listen. There is the wind moving through the beech trees, a few rooks calling, and very little else. Then lift your eyes. A pink tower rises out of the green Aberdeenshire hills, smooth below and crowded above with turrets, cones and corbels. It looks almost soft, as if it were made of chalk or sugar. It is not. Under that rosy coat is hard granite, and it has stood here for roughly four hundred years.

This is Craigievar Castle, in the rolling farmland south of the town of Alford. It is a tower house. That is a Scottish kind of home that is part fortress and part family residence, built tall rather than wide. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, landowners across this region built towers like this one. Many were later extended, altered or left to fall into ruin. Craigievar is different. It has changed very little since it was finished in the early seventeenth century.

The man who finished it had a wonderful nickname. William Forbes was a merchant from Aberdeen, and people called him Danzig Willie. Danzig is the old German name for Gdańsk, the port on the Baltic coast of Poland. Forbes made his fortune trading across the North Sea and the Baltic, moving goods between Scotland and northern Europe. He bought an unfinished tower on this site from another family. Then he put his merchant money into completing it, and he did not hold back.

Look at how the building is shaped. The lower walls are plain and almost bare, with only small windows. That was partly about defence and partly about tradition. But as your eye climbs, the tower bursts into detail. Little round turrets sit on stepped stone brackets, called corbels. Conical roofs, balustrades and gables cluster together at the top. By the time Forbes was building, real castle warfare in this part of Scotland was fading. Much of this display was about status — a way of saying that a trading family had arrived.

Now look at the colour again. The pink is a coat of harling. Harling is a traditional Scottish render, made with lime and small stones, thrown wet against the wall. It protects the granite from rain and frost. The castle was harled in pink in the past, and the National Trust for Scotland restored that colour in a major conservation project in recent years. Some visitors are surprised. They expect a grey stone castle, and they find a pink one.

That pink tower has collected a popular story. Locals and many guidebooks say Craigievar helped to inspire the castle in Walt Disney's Cinderella. It is a lovely idea, and you can see why people repeat it. The slim tower, the crown of turrets, the fairy-tale outline against the sky. But there is no firm record that proves the link. So enjoy it as a tale. Then look at the real building, which needs no film to make it interesting.

The Forbes family lived here for more than three centuries. That long, unbroken ownership is a big part of why the castle survived in such a complete state. Later generations did not tear out the old rooms to follow fashion. In 1963 the castle passed to the National Trust for Scotland, which still cares for it today. Inside, much of the furniture, many portraits and a great deal of family material stayed with the house.

Visits to the interior are usually by guided tour, and there is a good reason. The castle is tall and narrow, and the rooms are small. A single main spiral staircase climbs through the tower, with stone steps worn by four centuries of feet. Groups have to be kept small, so the stairs and rooms are not overloaded. As you climb, notice how thick the walls are. Window seats sit deep inside them, almost like little rooms of their own.

The highlight for many people is the Great Hall. This was the main public room, where the laird — the Scottish word for a landowner — received guests and held meals. Look up. The ceiling is covered in rich moulded plasterwork, with patterns and medallions pressed into the white surface. Plaster ceilings like this were a new fashion in Scotland in the early seventeenth century. This one is among the finest survivors. Over the large fireplace, a great plaster coat of arms of the royal house fills the wall.

That royal coat of arms is worth a second look. It was a clear statement of loyalty to the crown, placed where every visitor would see it. In a time of shifting politics, showing your allegiance on the wall was a sensible thing to do. Around the hall, look for the way the space feels both grand and close. It is not a vast medieval hall. It is a merchant's idea of grandeur, fitted into a tower.

On the upper floors, the rooms become more private. Bedrooms and small chambers open off the stair, each with its own character. The atmosphere here is domestic. You can picture family life — children on the stairs, fires in the grates, wind against the windows in winter. A tower house was cold and cramped by modern standards. But for its time, this was a comfortable and fashionable home, and it was built to impress anyone who climbed inside.

When you come back outside, take time with the grounds. The castle sits in parkland and woodland, with paths that lead away through the trees. From a little distance, the tower changes. Close up, you see the texture of the harling and the details of the corbels. Further away, the whole outline appears at once, pink against green fields or grey Scottish sky. The light here moves quickly, and the colour of the walls shifts with every passing cloud.

Before you leave, stand on the grass again and look up one last time. Follow the line of the wall from the plain base to the crowded roofline. Think of a merchant who sailed the cold Baltic and came home to build this. Listen to the rooks and the wind in the trees. As you walk away, turn around once more. Watch the pink tower grow smaller between the branches — still standing, still lived-in looking, after four hundred years.