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Note
Date 5 July 2022
Event ID 1138945
Category Descriptive Accounts
Type Note
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/1138945
The tower house is commonly believed to have been constructed by the Gordon family and served as hunting seat for the earls of Huntly. A datestone set above the entrance bears the date 1586, the initials IG and HG and the family's coat-of-arms. However, it have been suggested that the castle was completed as early 1564 by a John Gordon. In 1647, the 2nd Marquess of Huntly was imprisoned here, one of his own houses, before his trail and execution in Edinburgh in 1649.
It is situated above the Pass of Livet, historically an important routeway between Bamfshire and Aberdeen shire. It consists of a 4-storey, L-plan tower house built of whin and sandstone random rubble in lime mortar with rough granite dressings. The walls are founded on large boulders just at ground level.
The tower is entered through a round-headed entrance at ground level in the NE re-entrant angle. This has the remains of a boldly corbelled out box machicolation above. The ground floor of the main block had a vaulted kitchen and cellar accessed by a corridor. The cellar has a narrow stair rising up to the hall. The vaulting was intact in the 1890s but has subsequently collapsed. Above was the hall, a second floor chamber and a third floor attic chamber giving access to a corbelled round or bartizan and the box machicolation. The wing or jamb contained a wide staircase to the first floor, with access to the upper floors being by a circular stair corbelled out between the junction of the wing and main block.
D MacGibbon and T Ross 1887-1892; N Tranter 1970
Information from the HES Castle Conservation Register, 5 July 2022
