Fyvie Castle

Gravel crunches under your shoes as the long drive bends toward the house. Then the trees open, and a wall of pink-grey stone rises in front of you. It is tall, narrow and crowded with turrets. Conical roofs sit on top like candle snuffers. On a still morning you may hear rooks in the woods and the soft slap of water from the loch below. This is Fyvie Castle, in the farmland of Aberdeenshire.

Take a moment to read the long south front, because it holds a puzzle. This is not one building from one age. It is a stack of centuries. Five great families held Fyvie over roughly seven hundred years, and each one added a tower. Their names are now attached to those towers: Preston, Meldrum, Seton, Gordon and Leith. Standing here, you are looking at a family tree built in stone.

The earliest castle on this site goes back to the medieval period. It began as a royal stronghold, a fortified place where Scottish kings could hold this rich stretch of the northeast. Very little of that first fortress is visible today. The thick lower walls you see were raised and reshaped again and again. Picture a plainer, harder building, built for defence rather than display. Everything graceful came later.

Much of the elegance you see belongs to Alexander Seton. He was one of the sharpest political minds of late sixteenth-century Scotland. He rose to become Chancellor of Scotland and was made Earl of Dunfermline. Seton is also remembered as a guardian of the young prince who later became King Charles the First. He wanted a house that showed his status, and he turned Fyvie into a showpiece of the Scottish Baronial style. That style mixes castle defences with courtly decoration, and it shaped Scottish country houses for centuries.

Inside, look for Seton's great wheel stair. It is a broad spiral of stone that turns around a central column. Many experts call it one of the finest staircases of its kind in Scotland. The steps are wide and shallow, so the climb feels slow and ceremonial. Run your eyes along the curving walls as you go. The light from the narrow windows shifts with every turn, and the stone carries the polish of countless feet.

Now for a story that every guide at Fyvie is asked about. Seton's first wife was Lilias Drummond. She died in the early 1600s, and Seton remarried soon after. Legend has it that on the wedding night, the new couple heard sighing outside their bedroom. In the morning, Lilias's name was found scratched into the stone sill of the window. Those letters can still be seen today. Locals say her ghost, the Green Lady, still walks the corridors.

Fyvie has more than one legend attached to it. According to a popular tale, the medieval seer Thomas the Rhymer placed a curse on the castle. The story says that three stones were taken from church land to build the walls. The Rhymer is said to have foretold that the castle would never pass from father to eldest son while those stones remained. One stone is said to sit in the charter room, and some say it weeps. Of course, this is folklore, not documented fact.

There is also music in Fyvie's past. An old Scottish ballad called Mill o' Tifty's Annie tells of a young woman who loved Andrew Lammie, the trumpeter of Fyvie. Her family opposed the match, and the song ends in sorrow. Like many ballads, it mixes real names with heartbreak and invention. Locals say that a trumpet can sometimes be heard near the castle. It is a reminder that this place lived in songs as well as in charters.

In the eighteenth century the Gordon family held Fyvie, and they brought new tastes. One of the treasures here is a portrait of William Gordon by the Italian painter Pompeo Batoni. Batoni painted wealthy young travellers in Rome on their Grand Tour, which was a kind of finishing journey across Europe. Gordon stands in a dramatic red tartan, wrapped like a Roman toga. It is a confident image of a Scotsman abroad, and well worth a slow look.

Here is a surprise that many visitors miss. The last family to buy Fyvie made their fortune in America. Alexander Forbes-Leith grew up with roots in this area, then made his money in the American steel industry. He purchased the castle in the late nineteenth century. He filled it with Edwardian comfort, modern plumbing and a remarkable art collection. In a sense, Pittsburgh steel paid for the richly panelled rooms you walk through today.

That collection is one of the real strengths of the house. Look out for portraits by Sir Henry Raeburn, the leading portrait painter of Georgian Edinburgh. His sitters often look straight at you, lit by soft side light that makes their faces glow against dark backgrounds. You will also find arms and armour, tapestries, and fine furniture. Rooms like the gallery and the drawing room show how a wealthy family lived here around 1900, with gaslight and fireside ease.

In the 1980s the castle passed into the care of the National Trust for Scotland, the charity that looks after many historic places in Scotland. That is why the rooms are kept much as the last family left them. Step outside again and the grounds open up. There is a loch with a walking path, old woodland, an ice house once used to store winter ice, and a restored walled garden. The garden is planted with Scottish fruit and vegetables, so in late summer the air smells of apples and soft earth.

If you take the loop around the loch, turn back halfway and look at the castle across the water. From here the towers line up, and you can count the families again: Preston, Meldrum, Seton, Gordon, Leith. Each one wanted to leave a mark, and each tower shows a slightly different idea of power and comfort. The reflection in the loch doubles the turrets on a calm day.

So, before you go, stand still for a moment. Feel the cool air that comes off the stone, even in summer. Listen to the rooks and the wind in the beech trees. Somewhere above you is a window sill with a woman's name scratched into it four centuries ago. As you walk back down the drive, glance over your shoulder once more. The castle will look a little different now, because you know whose towers they are.